A MILLION LITTLE STORIES

By Andrew Cameron Williams

Since the hue and cry over A Million Little Pieces refuses to die down, and I now feel like I have something useful to contribute to the ongoing dialogue and controversy, I feel I must make the following points.

It seems clear to me that none of this uproar would have started if James Frey had ignored his agentπs alleged advice and continued to shop AMLP as a novel. But when he decided to sell it as a memoir, of course he ran into trouble. The only way he could have avoided it was if he had killed everyone who could have contradicted any part of the story. And then he would have been an even worse thing than an embellisher.

Letπs be clear on this: James Frey did not lie outright. He embellished greatly on some minor incidents to make them seem more exciting, more sexy. He forgot three things. One: For most Americans, even a minor contretemps with a police officer is a scene filled with fear and tension. Two: What happens in Hazelten stays in Hazelten. Three: Embellishments must have at least one grain of truth.

Oprahπs about face could seem troubling, especially since we now know that her producers knew--or suspected--months ago that Frey had exaggerated many parts of incidents recounted in the book. At first defending Frey, she has now turned on him and confronted him about these details. But I donπt blame her for her reluctance--or his reluctance--to admit a mistake. Weπre all human, and better to admit a mistake later than not at all.

I have purchased a copy of AMLP, but I have not read it. I do intend to, for many reasons--paramount among them to compare it to other personal accounts of addiction, specifically William S. Burroughsπ Naked Lunch, Jim Carrollπs The Basketball Diaries, Thomas de Quinceyπs The Confessions of an Opium Addict, Jack Gelber's play The Connection and Nelson Algrenπs The Man With The Golden Arm.

Every addict has a story. Some are obviously more compelling than others: a day-to-day account of stumbling and nodding through the dayπs haze to get to the next fix is not going to be as compelling as the same account shot through with corrupt cops, judgmental judges, dictatorial doctors and colorful comrades.

What most of the works listed above captured so well was the dreariness of addiction: the furniture covered in dust, sitting for hours lost in reverie, waiting until itπs time for the next shot, staring at a shoe or a crack in the wall and not really seeing them or much of anything. Burroughsπ work is also chock-full of grotesque monologues and grand guignol scenes that could only have been composed by a master satirist and observer of human nature. His work embodies many of the qualities of Bosch and Swift, especially their disgust with human bodies, their frailties and fetid odors.

Freyπs work--what Iπve seen of it--seems to have some of those elements, too. It begins, as millions of people now know, with Frey getting aboard a plane, looking like someone that has been worked over by a heavyweight boxer or Mafia hit man who pulled his punches. It also supposedly depicts ≥behind closed doors≤ scenes from a drug treatment facility that the authorities in question claim could never have happened. Having attended many different types of camps as a youth, I can guarantee you that stuff happens there that the counselors never find out about. Or--even worse--they find out and then do nothing.

It may be the biggest clichÈ of all that all of us have stories. Whether those stories, written down and put in print, would sell millions of copies depends in part on the publisher, the ad campaigns, the willingness of certain celebrities to champion the work and word of mouth. But most important of all is the writerπs ability to put you in his or her world, to enthrall you with details, to absorb your attention for hours or even days.

That was James Freyπs greatest success: he created a narrative that was utterly compelling. But it deviated too greatly from the truth. When it crossed that line, Frey had the obligation to represent the work as anything but non-fiction: as fiction, as docudrama, as based on his own experiences with some episodes embellished or recontexted to heighten the strength of the narrative. Millions of people are sufficiently familiar with the liberties that movies take with literature to allow such license for the author, if they are told up front that creative liberties have been taken with the truth.

The mistake may have come from a false premise: that AMLP had to be either fiction or non-fiction. Had Frey explored the territory of the undistributed middle, he could have conjured a writerπs statement that would have explained his authorial liberties to effect without duping anyone. This he failed to do until well after Pandoraπs Box had been opened. And now he must face the questioning crowd alone, while copies of his book get returned faster than Christmas fruitcakes, and simultaneously apologize for and explain his mistakes.

But this does not dismiss the power of the existing book. Remember the clichÈ that ≥If my writing helps even one person, then it will have been worth the effort?≤ Well, as the Oprah show has demonstrated, the book has definitely helped at least one person, and possibly thousands. The book spoke to them, saying the most important thing that one human being can say to another, what the nun in The Connection says to her fellow junkies:

≥You are not alone.≤

No matter what happens, no one can take that away from James Frey.

No one.