via the Smoking Gun...I knew it.... ok I had a feeling

A Million Little Lies via boing boing.net.

Now I haven't read the entire peice, but finding out about this inquiry was rather fascinating to me. I started the book after honestly buying it because the cover graphics were really pretty amazing and immediately hated it after the first two chapters. I hated the character, I hated the writing style and I hated the fact months ago that Oprah chose this as a Book Club peice and made this guy a millionaire and famous. There is a well established pattern of my buying things just because they were pretty... that is a given, so don't fault me there. I read a little of the middle of the book and liked the prose actually but then I turned. I read the first two chapters, closed the book forever, gave it to my brother (who has it sitting on a bookshelf in his house) after not believing that honestly anyone working for any airline would ever actually let someone that incapacited on a flight without supervision. It didn't and still doesn't ring true and I didn't like being misled that this was a true story of this man's drug addiction. Uh... it bugged me so much I didn't even want it in my house. I am thrilled that Mr. Frey is being taken to task on what is clearly a fictionalized set of exaggerations of his alcohol and drug problems. I don't deny for a minute that he is an addict but the extent to which it was portrayed to the public is what has been taken to question, and I for one am really glad.

Sure the book is a modern tale of "Beware...Drugs are Bad" but so is the show on A&E called Intervention. There isn't anything more real than watching a 24 year old girl put a toothbrush down her throat and vomiting into a plastic ziploc bag. Sorry Mr. Frey... she wins.

I told a woman who was looking at the book at Costco a couple of weeks ago that just because someone at Oprah made the decision this is a good book doesn't mean that it is. She was snowblinded by the little oval with red "Oprah's Pick" sticker she didn't want to put it down. So I asked her, do you want to read about someone's penis and cocaine and how they mix in his universe? Do you want to read about the underbelly of American society but now its Crystal Meth your neighbor may be doing and what are you doing about that? And once you have read all about this man's supposed indescretions and drug abuse, what are you planning to do? Go on with your life the same as it is? Why not spend that 11 bucks you were going to on this book on something that will make your life better or the lives of someone else, stop the Oprah Madness. She put the book down. She probably went back and picked it up and bought it anyways, but she will always think of that crazy lunatic telling her it was a waste at the Book Table at Costco. My job was done and I am thrilled that The Smoking Gun has taken it a step further.

I don't like people being taken advantage of, which is just what the James Frey Character in the book does over and over again, takes advantage of people...and apparantly James Frey the author has done the same. And there is proof now.