Elephant : A Million Little Lies?

The Smoking Gun website yesterday tore apart many of the factual details of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, and media — large and small — have jumped on the story. I went to Frey's website to see if he had answered the charges. His last post (as of 1:30 a.m. Tuesday) was in response to an email from The Smoking Gun the day before its piece was published. He wrote, "So let the haters hate, let the doubters doubt, I stand by my book, and my life, and I won’t dignify this bullshit with any sort of further response. "

I am an avid reader of addiction memoirs. I'm in the middle of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City and can't wait to finish this blog entry so I can dive into Part Three. I'm hoping to excerpt a chapter that I think paints as exquisite a portrait of an addict's megalomania as I've ever read.

When A Million Little Pieces came out a few years ago, however, I decided to skip it after reading a few reviews that suggested that some of the scenes, starting with an airplane trip where the author seemed like he should be in an emergency room instead of an airline seat, were implausible. When the book got Oprah's imprimatur, and suddenly everyone else was reading it, and book agents and the like began touting it as a model to be emulated, I broke down and ordered it.

It was slower slogging for me than I anticipated. I found the protagonist to be pretty damn dull, despite some memorable scenes — such as his having root canal without anesthesia — in the first 200 pages. (But I did wonder why he wasn't allowed to use anesthesia, and so did my dental hygienist. There may be some Novocain addicts out there, but we've yet to meet one.)

There were some other details that bothered me later, such as an improbable list of juvenile transgressions that went far beyond anything I'd ever heard anyone do with such persistency and vigor (and I'd done a few myself), and the pummeling of a priest in Paris who too conveniently attempts to seduce a young Frey contemplating suicide (and I've known pederast clergy).

Mind you, these are none of the details that The Smoking Gun, in a piece titled "A Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey's Fiction Addiction," contradicts. I won't bother recounting those here.

I found myself engrossed in the story once Frey became a three-dimensional character, capable of both love and friendship, in the second half of the book. All of a sudden, I cared about him. The story took on a dramatic arc. I bit my nails over whether he'd get caught in his trysts with his girlfriend, and wondered what would happen to the judge he befriends. I was fascinated by his overnight perspicacity. Most of all, I was captivated by the larger-than-life Mafioso, Leonard, who decides he'll be Frey's guardian angel whether he likes it or not.

If these characters turn out to be as fictional as Frey's trumped-up criminal record appears to be, I'll be disappointed. But the biggest fraud Frey could commit, in my book, is being dishonest about his own character. Did he trump up his John Wayne, I-did-it-my-way, take-your-12-steps-and-shove-them persona just to create a more distinctive literary protagonist?

I sent the following email to someone last week who had asked for my opinion of the book about a month earlier, when I had just started to read it.

Well, it didn't turn out to be such a quick read for me. I just finished the book yesterday. I found Frey to be almost intolerably one dimensional for nearly half the book — everything revolved around him in, as you say, a very adolescent way — but I thought that his character blossomed in the second half of the book. I use "character" deliberately because I don't think that the James Frey in the second part of the book could have had anywhere near the insight that he exhibited in so short a time. I do believe that James Frey, writing the book several years later, is imposing what he's learned on the poor lost soul in the book. That's fine. I basically agree that the story strains credulity but, in the end, I liked it. I want to read more about Leonard, and will probably but the second book, too. And Lilly. But I'm sad to see that both died. I think Frey's self-righteousness worked for him, and that's fine, too, but there's a lot of AA thinking that creeps into the consciousness of someone who thinks he's going it alone. I can say that because I'm one of them.

What's dangerous about the book, to me, is the emphasis he puts on self-control, as if it all comes down to will power. In rejecting the disease model, he really places addition back about 75 years when it was seen simply as a moral failure. It seems to me that the untreated earache that Frey had as a baby had a lot to do with his "Fury" and self-medication, as he puts it, as does the genetics of his grandfather, but for some reason he wants to reject any explanation of his drinking outside of a loss of control.

Frey's message, loud and clear, is that addiction is not a disease. That's hogwash.

It appears that people have been inspired by Frey's message. That's good. I, too, believe that it is possible to achieve recovery outside of a 12-Step program, if for no other reason than I did myself. But I also believe that 12- Step programs have proven themselves as the single-most effective way to recover and it serves no purpose, in my mind, to put them down as vehemently as he does.

It's not that addicts can't be extremely insightful, even in the grip of their addiction. I think we've witness that here with Steve, who left this morning to begin a 90-day rehab. Even when Steve was using, he wrote with a keen understanding about what he was doing and what he needed to do to stop.

Among Steve's first posts to the site last August 30 (post #7) was this:

As an addict, I don't think I was ever ABLE to drink/drug responsibly, no matter what I was taught, when, or by whom. I often used to feel that this "Disease Concept" is a cop-out, but as I struggle with my addiction, I realize how true it really is.

Or this insight into the company he kept (post #70) in November:

When thinking about this, I don't really know ANYONE who drinks responsibly. Even if they don't drink alcoholically, they do binge drink (The "I'm gonna go get fucked up tonight" mentality)... I've heard of these 'temperate drinkers' but never really seen one. Maybe that's because they don't hang out where I used to...

Or this recent explanation of his New Year's resolutions (post #2).

My resolutions are pretty simple...

1) Complete 90 day rehab program...

2) Quit Smoking (Although MANY have advised against this, I'm going to try anyhow)

3) Stay Clean And Sober...

I don't really know what happened to me this NYE, and I'm trying not to be a Polyanna about it... But I had a cathartic 'moment' on NYE, this feeling like I didn't NEED to destroy myself any longer. CAll it a moment of clarity or a spiritual experience, or whatever... All I know is that when I woke up on 1-1-06, I honestly, deep down inside, felt like I was both able and willing to put 'it' down. In the past, I've always kind of known that I would go back to the drugs. That's why I never would throw away any paraphernalia, etc... I always knew that it was just a matter of time until I went back. I'm not saying that FOR SURE this time will be the time that I 'get' it, but I can say with certainty that never before have I felt like I could stop. Plenty of times, I wanted to stop, but never believed that I COULD. For whatever reason, like I said, for the first time in my life, I feel like I can put it down, and that I don't HAVE to g! o back to that. Also, I took two small (but important) actions that day (the 1st). On my drive home from Columbus, I threw my pipe out the window of the car @ 80MPH, and proceeded to DELETE every number that I had in my phone that was drug related, be it dope boys, or using friends... Again, not that this is really that earth-shaking (I know people who throw pipes out every other day, and then go buy another one) but both of these are things that I NEVER would do before...

Frankly, the only time I worried about Steve eventually getting clean was when he said that he'd been given a book about Rational Recovery and A Million Little Pieces for Christmas and, after reading it straight through, was troubled. I have nothing against Rational Recovery, if it works for you, but I didn't want to see Steve give up his bed at the rehab — a placement that he'd fought hard to get. Here's my reply to Steve:

Twenty years ago, I sort of did my own "rational recovery" because I did not want to buy into the "god" thing at AA. I've come to appreciate the concept of "a higher power" much better now, and I would not let it stand in my way if I needed to get sober. In fact, I think I'd use it in a very powerful way.

Everyone seems to finish A Million Little Pieces in a day or two or three; I've been muddling through. On some levels I identify; on others I don't. He's so self-absorbed and one dimensional that I find it difficult to empathize as much as I'd like to. I'm much more interested, in fact, in his Mafia friend, Leonard, who I understand is the subject of his second book.

While Frey excoriates the 12 Steps, he's finding "salvation" in the Tao. The Tao has been one of the most influential books in my life, too. I haven't done a strict textual analysis, but I'd bet that there are a lot of similarities between it and a lot of AA slogans. I don't see why they have to be mutually exclusive, in any event. The first words of the Tao are:

The tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao

To me, that speaks to a higher power that Frey seems to reject. An eternal Tao doesn't, by definition, come strictly from within, and doesn't dissipate on the Death of Frey or Forbes or Steve, it seems to me. Then again, it can't be told, so who knows?

As far as rejecting the disease theory, it's bad science. But if it helps someone in their resolve to quit, fine. I think you can accept responsibility for fixing yourself at the same time that you acknowledge that you have a disease, though. We had a brief discussion about powerlessness where someone set me straight. It boiled down to the fact that you gain power when you admit that you are powerless once you take that first hit or drink. You are taking responsibility, and exercising power, by not doing so.

So I guess my advice would be to keep pushing to get into that 90-day program. I don't agree with the therapists in A Million Little Pieces who say that the 12 Steps are the only way to get sober, but I think they've worked for more people that any other individual method. Take what you need, as they say, and leave the rest.

Steve sent me the postal address of his rehab this morning, and I will forward it to anyone who has participated in our Discussions if you'd like to write to him. He also wrote:

am anxiously looking forward to this... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pretty nervous... Honestly the thing I'm most nervous about is KNOWING that I can't use during that time... I can't wait to log back on and check in with everyone, and share my experience...

I believe Steve is being honest with us. I have learned a lot from him, and I know his voice will be missed by many people while he's away. I regret that Frey, apparently, is not being honest with us. But the messengers are irrelevant in the long run. The truth is, the only final word on addiction is in the last breath of someone caught in its grips.

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