Last year, there were a lot of articles from my peers in literary journalism bemoaning the fact that there has yet to be something outstanding in recent fiction. While the bestseller lists are dominated by sharp yet formulaic novels from James Patterson and John Grisham, really innovative fiction is confined to journals that don't have the readership they deserve.
Now it seems like innovative fiction and best sellers have finally come together'unfortunately, the world that combination thrives in is non-fiction.
James Frey, an author made famous by his rehab memoir 'A Million Little Pieces' and the gushing praise of Oprah Winfrey, has fallen from grace thanks to investigations by the website The Smoking Gun (thesmokinggun.com). According to a six-page report, Frey falsified large parts of his memoir, exaggerating a five-hour jail visit into a three-month incarceration and reinventing his root canal to exclude painkillers.
Frey has been in the media's sniper scope since the report became public, and accusations have been leveled against him faster than most authors get rejections. He was expelled from Oprah's Book Club and forced to admit his lies on her show in an interview that made him look like he was not only a liar, but also illiterate. A more serious charge was leveled against Frey last week, claiming 'A Million Little Pieces' plagiarized work from fellow drug-addicted writer Eddie Little.
Frey is not the only author to have been recently exposed as a sham. Yinishye Nasdijj, a Navajo author who chronicled his troubled childhood, was exposed as a sympathetic (and unpronounceable) mask for gay-sadomasochism author Tim Barrus. Apparently, similarities between their work have been exposed, and I hate to consider what the overlap might be.
Author JT LeRoy also joined the ranks of literary hoaxes as the former prostitute and transgender AIDS victim was revealed as just an image concocted by artist Laura Albert. For public appearances, Albert apparently slapped a wig and sunglasses on her sister-in-law.
What's surprising isn't that everyone lied about their personal lives, but the fact that they have gone to such extremes to do so.
Clutching tennis balls until nails crack during surgery, being pimped out by your mother at truck stops, raising adopted children with fetal alcohol syndrome'all are stories so passionate and vivid they could be a recipe for successful fiction.
But thriving in the world of fiction isn't easy to do, with publishers more interested in the next round of derivative bestsellers than original prose. Frey's story was rejected by 17 publishers when he tried to publish it as fiction, and Nasdijj's potential readers might have balked if a gay porn series wound up in the author's biography. Many readers aren't interested in edgy, well-written fiction'they want to hear about real people who survive against horrible odds.
Lying does seem to lead to profit for these writers. Although Nasdijj's was pulled by publishers, 'A Million Little Pieces' is still No. 2 on the 'USA Today' best-seller list (still as non-fiction) and according to Facebook, 270 UW-Madison students call it a favorite. With the exception of Oprah, who seems more concerned about her own image than Frey's, readers still find his work fascinating'except now the focus has gone from skill to scandal.
I'm personally depressed that talented writers have to fall back on tabloid tricks to get their books into circulation, and that it takes personal tragedy to get noticed in the world of literature. What happened to the days when authors like Kerouac and Fitzgerald were not only real alcoholics, but used it as inspiration to create classic fiction?
In the end, I hope these books are judged on how good they are, rather than if the writer was telling the truth on their book jacket. After all, what should really matter for an author is their ability to tell a good story'even if that story never happened.
