A Million Little Pieces and the Smoking Gun article
So, I've read the comprehensive Smoking Gun article and I really don't know how to react. I think I'm begining to point a finger at the publishers. Talese obviously saw the manuscript when it was being shopped as fiction. Then he must have seen it as a memoir, so why didn't he catch the fabrications? There should have been more of an effort to catch the fictional aspects and seperate them from the facts. I'm also suprised at myself for not picking up on the fabrications while reading the book. The train crash incident is most notable in my mind. How could a lie, that could so easily be exposed, not come to light before the Smoking Gun article. The priest story also seems like a vivid fabrication. How could the priest not require medical attention. There would be records and people would ask questions. It's just a really wierd book.
I'm not sure how to move forward though. The book itself, read in a vacum, is terrific. But I can't give it any merit if much of it is made up. There must be some consequences for his lying. I guess I'm still looking at the situation as if the book and the fallout are in two seperate spheres. I applaude the digging that exposed Frey, but at the same time I admire his book. I can't seem to reconcile the two to come up with a good judgement of the book.
1 comment:
I think we're very similar in the way we are thinking about Frey's book Pat, except I was very skeptical about events throughout the entire book. Maybe having read it after the scandal caused that, maybe not. But events like the train wreck, and especially the story about the priest (when I read that I said aloud, quite incredulously, "really?"), really distanced me from the story and my trust of Frey. They really are such easy events to check out, and Frey had a lot of stones to try and change them or possible fabricate them and expect no one to notice.
We are different Pat, however, in that I have no respect or admiration for this book.
Post a Comment