About two and a half years ago, James Frey publushed A Million Little Lies, in which he purported to be a destatable human being, public enemy #1 at one point but now a recovered junkie who wrote this memoir as a cautionary tale. It's sold 3.5 million copies so far, boosted greatly by being put in Oprah's Book Club. No other book sold more copies last year besides Harry Potter.
This Sunday, The Smoking Gun published
an exhaustive six-page investigation which concluded that Frey had either greatly embellished or completely fabricated some of the most sensational material in the book. (This is not the first time that accusations have been leveled against Frey, but it is the first time that anyone had proof, in the form of police documents and the accounts of witnesses). In one segment, Frey claims to be high on crack and smashed on alcohol when he hits a police officer with his car, which results in a heated argument and Frey being hauled bodily into a cruiser, with a list of serious felonies soon to be attached to his rap sheet.
A legal battle has ensued between Frey and TSG, but what strikes me is this guy, who is apparently just a middle-of-the-road creep, would risk ruining his life with a pile of outrageous lies. And it also depresses me that it would take two and a half years for anyone to care enough to do some fact checking, despite the book's and the author's wild popularity (easily drawing a thousand people at every public appearance). Is it likely that he's just a compulsive liar with a wild imagination -- because who else would claim to get a root canal without anesthesia, or walk onto a commercial passenger plane with his shirt covered in blood, snot, and other bodily liquids?