<![CDATA[A Million Little Pieces]]>

false <![CDATA[A Million Little Pieces]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157865754m/1241.jpg 1241 32 News from Doubleday & Anchor Books The controversy over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn't matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them. It is, however, Doubleday and Anchor's policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper. A publisher's relationship with an author is based to an extent on trust. Mr. Frey's repeated representations of the book's accuracy, throughout publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections. When the Smoking Gun report appeared, our first response, given that we were still learning the facts of the matter, was to support our author. Since then, we have questioned him about the allegations and have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished. We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of A Million Little Pieces. We are immediately taking the following actions:We are issuing a publisher's note to be included in all future printings of the book. James Frey has written an author's note that will appear in all future printings of the book. The jacket for all future editions will carry the line "With new notes from the publisher and from the author." *Customers should find the Author's Note and Publisher's Note in copies purchased from Amazon.com after April 15, 2006. <hr noshade="noshade" size="1" class="bucketDivider" /><div class="bucket"> Note: The following editorial reviews were written before the recent revelations by James Frey and the publisher. Amazon.com The electrifying opening of James Frey's debut memoir, A Million Little Pieces, smash-cuts to the then 23-year-old author on a Chicago-bound plane "covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood." Wanted by authorities in three states, without ID or any money, his face mangled and missing four front teeth, Frey is on a steep descent from a dark marathon of drug abuse. His stunned family checks him into a famed Minnesota drug treatment center where a doctor promises "he will be dead within a few days" if he starts to use again, and where Frey spends two agonizing months of detox confronting "The Fury" head on: <BLOCKQUOTE>I want a drink. I want fifty drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want fifty bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, five hundred hits of acid, a garbage bag filled with mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can.</BLOCKQUOTE> One of the more harrowing sections is when Frey submits to major dental surgery without the benefit of anesthesia or painkillers (he fights the mind-blowing waves of "bayonet" pain by digging his fingers into two old tennis balls until his nails crack). His fellow patients include a damaged crack addict with whom Frey wades into an ill-fated relationship, a federal judge, a former championship boxer, and a mobster (who, upon his release, throws a hilarious surf-and-turf bacchanal, complete with pay-per-view boxing). In the book's epilogue, when Frey ticks off a terse update on everyone, you can almost hear the Jim Carroll Band's brutal survivor's lament "People Who Died" kicking in on the soundtrack of the inevitable film adaptation. The rage-fueled memoir is kept in check by Frey's cool, minimalist style. Like his steady mantra, "I am an Alcoholic and I am a drug Addict and I am a Criminal," Frey's use of repetition takes on a crisp, lyrical quality which lends itself to the surreal experience. The book could have benefited from being a bit leaner. Nearly 400 pages is a long time to spend under Frey's influence, and the stylistic acrobatics (no quotation marks, random capitalization, left-aligned text, wild paragraph breaks) may seem too self-conscious for some readers, but beyond the literary fireworks lurks a fierce debut. --Brad Thomas Parsons 3140930 2003 A Million Little Pieces total:31075|5:5956|4:10595|3:8997|2:3585|1:1942| 31075 108263 37550 5224 5 26 false false Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sat May 26 16:32:37 -0700 2007 Sat May 26 17:07:21 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 28 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 25 20:21:22 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 26 01:55:08 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 18 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Mar 31 20:22:26 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 31 21:15:02 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 18 false false Sat Mar 24 23:34:39 -0700 2007 Thu Apr 26 12:16:34 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 14 true false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Dec 06 08:27:54 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 06 08:28:02 -0800 2007
The drama, in case you live under a ro...more...]]> 1 13 false true Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed May 28 11:50:12 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 12:06:55 -0700 2008
So I read this knowing it was a total work of fiction, but I think I would have gotten it even if I hadn't known. It was just such utter crap -- oh, look at me, I'm so fucked up I can't even look myself in the eyes, in fact I'm more fucked up ...more...]]> 1 11 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Apr 17 21:31:41 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 17 21:39:23 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 8 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 04 07:08:31 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 05 10:43:32 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 8 false false Sun Mar 25 09:23:29 -0700 2007 Wed Apr 25 13:53:15 -0700 2007
I enjo...more...]]> 3 8 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 09 07:20:26 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 09 07:29:52 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 6 false false Thu Oct 23 09:32:33 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 23 09:36:23 -0700 2008 5 6 false false Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Fri Aug 01 01:21:00 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 12 14:47:40 -0700 2008 first off, it's a great read with a unique style. frey makes a sort of rhythm with his sentence structure throughout the entire story, pulling and pushing the reader along at a pace that he (frey) determines, and that is an amazing accomplishment i...more...]]> 4 5 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sun Apr 29 16:36:53 -0700 2007 Mon May 07 14:20:04 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 4 false false Thu Mar 02 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Sep 02 09:51:53 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 02 09:52:18 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 4 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Nov 08 19:13:35 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 09 14:07:28 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 4 false false Sun Sep 16 21:22:29 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 06 20:39:19 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 12 21:15:36 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 6 false false Sun Aug 03 18:44:14 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 03 18:50:05 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 4 false false Wed Apr 05 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Fri Feb 22 09:34:43 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 22 09:38:10 -0800 2008 0 3 false false Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Apr 20 21:36:56 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 20 22:25:53 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 3 false false Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Thu Dec 06 19:43:20 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 19 08:13:07 -0800 2007 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1241