AmbivaBlog: Horse's Mouth Bad-Mouths Frey

This is the classic children's book, Goodenough Gismo, by Richmond I. Kelsey, published in 1948. Nearly unavailable in libraries and the collector's market, it is posted here with love as an "orphan work" so that it may be seen and appreciated -- and perhaps even republished, as it deserves to be. After you read this book, it won't surprise you to learn that Richmond Irwin Kelsey (1905-1987) was an accomplished artist, or that as Dick Kelsey, he was one of the great Disney art directors, breaking your heart with "Pinocchio," "Dumbo," and "Bambi."

If anyone has a right to criticize James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, it's his fellow recovering addicts. And they tend to tackle him not so much specifically on his dishonesty as a "memoirist," but on the macho, tough-it-out style of "recovery" of which his inflated bravado on the page is a part.

Here's part of a Publishers Weekly piece by NPR commentator Heather King, author of her own drunk-to-sober memoir, Parched. (Nonsubscribers to PW can apparently read the whole thing. Let me know if you can't.) I'm quoting it with the caveat that I'm not a recovering addict, and cannot judge. I doubt that there's a one-size-fits-all method of recovery. At the same time, my clean and sober friends tell me, there are inescapable universal truths regarding denial, self-deception, and in King's words, "honesty, integrity, faith."

Drama is the movement from narcissism to humility, but Frey is exactly the same at the end of his story—minus the drugs—as he is at the beginning: an insecure braggart without a spark of vitality, gratitude or fun. "A ballsy, bone-deep memoir," Salon.com called it, but for any alcoholic worth his or her salt, throwing up blood, puking on oneself, and committing petty-ass crimes in and of themselves couldn't be bigger yawns. What's gritty is the moment, knowing you're dying, when the world turns on its axis and you realize My way doesn't work. What's ballsy isn't just egomaniacally recounting your misdeeds; it's taking the trouble to find the people you've screwed over, looking them in the eye, and saying you're sorry. What's bone-deep—or might have been if Frey had done it—is figuring out that other people suffer, too, and developing some compassion for them. Oprah speaks of "the redemption of James Frey"—but redeemed from what, and by whom? Sobriety, in my experience, isn't the staged melodrama of sitting in a bar and staring down a drink to prove you've "won"—as Frey does upon leaving rehab. It's the ongoing attempt, knowing in advance you'll fall woefully short, to order your life around honesty, integrity, faith.
So, in fact, is writing. It's every writer's sacred honor to "get it right," but perhaps the burden falls heaviest on the memoirist. As a memoirist, it seems to me, something has to have happened to you that you're burning to tell. You've undergone some kind of transformation that matters not because it says something about you, but because it says something about the world [ . . . ] You have to have some kind of love for the world, with all its terrible suffering; you have to be willing to cut off your writing hand rather than betray by a word what it's taught you. The problem is that it doesn't seem to have taught James Frey much of anything, which is why A Million Little Pieces rings false, on both levels, from start to finish.

I'm not sure where his Hazelden was, for example, but it couldn't have been more different than mine. When I washed up on its shores, nobody told me I had to believe in God and join a "Program" and that I'd drink again if I didn't. [ . . . ] Nobody made me do a moral inventory with a priest. [ . . . T]he place where I spent 30 days was a country club-like facility, manned by an expert staff, and peopled not with Hollywood caricatures, but struggling, flesh-and-blood human beings like me. The place Frey describes is a combination federal prison, inner city detox and B-movie stage set. Who were these vicious thugs [ . . . ] who have the thousands of dollars and/or health insurance to pay for a state-of-the-art rehab? [ . . . ] Who are these shadowy Dr. Mengele types provoking screams from the medical unit? The only screams I heard during my stay were of laughter—at people who made lame-ass statements like "I have lived alone, I have fought alone, I have dealt with pain alone." With two rich parents, a decent education and an array of loyal friends? Please!

As John Cheever said, "I lie, in order to tell a greater truth." But Frey lied to tell a lesser truth: he lied to make himself look like a hero. He lied [ . . . ] because on the one hand he wants the reader to feel sorry for him, and on the other he wants to be held in awe. [ . . . ]

[Frey's] book has sold three and a half million copies; mine has sold—well, let's just say ever-so-slightly fewer than that. I could be depressed over the fact that while Frey has assured that he will never be a victim, he's made victims of so many of the people who read his book. I could be angry that a cynical hack job is a runaway bestseller, while a wrenching, factually accurate memoir that I sweated tears of blood to get right, and sent out to the world with fear and trembling, praying I was worthy to call myself a writer, has garnered a more modest following.

But what's to be angry about? I can't believe how lucky I am . . .

You know what? I was thinking of reading A Million Little Pieces before this whole brouhaha broke. I think I'll read Parched instead.