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4:22 pm - Saturday, Jan. 14, 2006 (An investigation by The Smoking Gun reveals that Frey was nowhere near the bad-ass, crazy crackhead law-breaker depicted in the book. He basically pumped up his "criminal past" to sell books, and decided to make his book a "memoir" when he couldn't sell it as a novel.) What's more interesting to me than the controversy itself is the fact that it's not more of a controversy. Frankly, it makes me feel very out-of-touch and old-fashioned that, while I think this, if true (And I believe it is), makes Frey a liar and a cheat, and he ought to be ashamed of himself and give back every dime he got from people under false pretenses, a fairly sizable chunk of the population seems to be think, "Hey, it's a good read--it's inspiring--so who really cares if it's strictly 'true' or not?". (For the record, I only got about halfway through the book. Whether the "James Frey" depicted in A Million Little Pieces was real, made-up, or some hybrid of the two, I basically didn't like him, and didn't give a fuck whether he cleaned himself up or not. And I found the writing style more annoying than innovative.) I feel troubled and discouraged that, for a good number of people, "truth" doesn't really seem to matter anymore (Not even to Oprah, for God's sake!). Maybe that ship sailed a long time ago and I missed it, but the idea that so many of us believe no one in the public arena is telling the truth and have given up expecting it really bothers me. Well, I actually want to write more about this, but I'm out of time (I wasn't scheduled to work today, but I asked if they could give me some hours, and they did. W00-H00!)...
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