"The most lacerating tale of drug addiction since William S. Burroughs' Junky." --The Boston Globe "Again and again, the book delivers recollections that leave the reader winded and unsteady. James Frey's staggering recovery memoir could well be seen as the final word on the topic."--San Francisco Chronicle "A brutal, beautifully written memoir."--The Denver Post "Gripping . . . A great story . . . You can't help but cheer his victory." --Los Angeles Times Book Review
From Doubleday & Anchor Books The controversy over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn't matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.
It is, however, Doubleday and Anchor's policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper. A publisher's relationship with an author is based to an extent on trust. Mr. Frey's repeated representations of the book's accuracy, throughout publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections. When the Smoking Gun report appeared, our first response, given that we were still learning the facts of the matter, was to support our author. Since then, we have questioned him about the allegations and have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished.
We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of A Million Little Pieces.
Note: The following editorial reviews were written before the above revelations by James Frey and the publisher. Amazon.com The electrifying opening of James Frey's debut memoir, A Million Little Pieces, smash-cuts to the then 23-year-old author on a Chicago-bound plane "covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood." Wanted by authorities in three states, without ID or any money, his face mangled and missing four front teeth, Frey is on a steep descent from a dark marathon of drug abuse. His stunned family checks him into a famed Minnesota drug treatment center where a doctor promises "he will be dead within a few days" if he starts to use again, and where Frey spends two agonizing months of detox confronting "The Fury" head on:
I want a drink. I want fifty drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want fifty bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, five hundred hits of acid, a garbage bag filled with mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can.
One of the more harrowing sections is when Frey submits to major dental surgery without the benefit of anesthesia or painkillers (he fights the mind-blowing waves of "bayonet" pain by digging his fingers into two old tennis balls until his nails crack). His fellow patients include a damaged crack addict with whom Frey wades into an ill-fated relationship, a federal judge, a former championship boxer, and a mobster (who, upon his release, throws a hilarious surf-and-turf bacchanal, complete with pay-per-view boxing). In the book's epilogue, when Frey ticks off a terse update on everyone, you can almost hear the Jim Carroll Band's brutal survivor's lament "People Who Died" kicking in on the soundtrack of the inevitable film adaptation.
The rage-fueled memoir is kept in check by Frey's cool, minimalist style. Like his steady mantra, "I am an Alcoholic and I am a drug Addict and I am a Criminal," Frey's use of repetition takes on a crisp, lyrical quality which lends itself to the surreal experience. The book could have benefited from being a bit leaner. Nearly 400 pages is a long time to spend under Frey's influence, and the stylistic acrobatics (no quotation marks, random capitalization, left-aligned text, wild paragraph breaks) may seem too self-conscious for some readers, but beyond the literary fireworks lurks a fierce debut. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
Very Satisfied:
The book came just the way described. Very happy with it. Would buy from them again.
I need a long shower. I feel dirty after reading this book:
I read this knowing full well it was fiction, after the furor. The plot is sophmoric. Everything tied up so neatly. Tiresome language. And the treatment of the female lead is a deplorable exploitation. It's hard to exploit someone who is not real but that might be Frey's singular talent. Dreck
Exploitation of addiction...:
This was a strange little book...on the one hand we have James Frey embellishing most if not all of his recovery from addiction, misleading all readers and self aggrandizing his disease. On the other, this was, admittedly, a true page turner, one which took me only a short time to finish (I took this on with all the knowledge of Frey's delusion). This dichotomy is what faces me as I try to objectively review this "best seller". Maybe this perversion is what Frey originally had in mind and if it was... more info
Good Story/ Bad Author:
I bought this book because of all of it's publicity, but just because it's popular, doesn't make it a good read. The story started off strong: He's on an airplane, he's got holes in his face, he's missing teeth, it sounds interesting, right? But as the story goes on, you notice the author's poor style of writing. James Frey doesn't know how or refuses to use quotation marks. This makes the story difficult to read and you'll find yourself going back and forth between pages to find out who is saying... more info
