A million little pieces
by James Frey · first published 2003
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"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 ReviewFrom the Trade Paperback edition.
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…anything. Okay, armchair liberal arts student, here's the smack: When you purport to be writing a factual account, there are certain standards that you can be held accountable to. Take, for instance, "A Million Little Pieces". It was a memoir written by James Frey in 2003 that absolutely imploded when people found out that he made up large chunks of the material (wikipedia now lists it as "semi-fictional"). There's a difference…
on “MacKenzie Bezos Writes Amazon Review for Jeff Bezos Biography” ↗…to performance. I doubt most people would react the same to a fictional autobiography from a reclusive author a la J.D. Salinger like they did to authors like James Frey who went on Oprah to promote A Million Little Pieces. From the first few paragraphs of the TFA it sounds like Beatrice Sparks likewise attached the fiction to herself publicly through her lectures and self help work or whatever. It's like designing a fake…
on “A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller” ↗Sure. Some memoirs state this in the foreword. There are also memoirs that are "fictionalized", like James Frey's book "A Million Little Pieces." Originally published as a memoir in 2003, it was later revealed that many of the events Frey described were exaggerated or fabricated. This caused a lot of controversy at the time, but many subsequent…
on “Gemini "duck" demo was not done in realtime or with voice” ↗…absurd and obvious his self-mythologizing was. It's not academic but the closest similar case that's coming to mind off the top of my head was when James Frey (who FWIW is white) got found out for A Million Little Pieces, which definitely was major news.
A Million Little Pieces was a popular book about addiction that inspired a lot of people. Turned out the story wasn't true, and so a lot of inspiration turned into anger. Always thought that was interesting, because if the…
on “I won't read LLM authored fiction” ↗…story happens inside of the film itself. But if you lie in the meta data, then it’s unethical. In this case if Fargo was categorized as Documentary or non fiction. This was a big deal when the book A Million Little Pieces has to be recategorized as fiction and a lot of ppl were deceived. Another thing you really shouldn’t do is say “I don’t use steroids or makeup or surgery - I achieved this body through hard work alone”…
on “The Netflix Logo with Yarn was a lie” ↗