'A Million Little Pieces' author James Frey defends 'memoir' on Oprah

Author James Frey faces Oprah Winfrey for the first time in five years as one of her most memorable guests during a two part appearance this week.

Frey was targeted by Oprah back in 2006, when it became clear that his memoir titled "A Million Little Pieces," which she had chosen for her book club, was based more on fiction than fact. At the time, Oprah had said "I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."

Frey is sitting down with the talk show maven on Monday (May 16) and Tuesday to defend himself and come clean about the mistruths portrayed in his novel.

"I was dishonest in promoting the book," he admits.

"We originally shopped the book as a novel," Frey explains. "When I sat down to write the book, I didn't think of it as a memoir, I didn't think of it as an novel even. I thought of it as some, in a way, statement of defiance."

He continues to explain that when writing the book itself, he didn't write with regard to grammar, punctuation or even what genre it would fall under.

"I was thinking about it in the way that writers I admired and who mean something to me wrote," Frey says of the legendary Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller. "These were writers who wrote books about their own lives in some way, but they tried to make art out of what they lived. I don't think they were concerned about 'Is this fact or is this not, is this fiction or non fiction?' They were just trying to tell a story in the best way they could and in a way that made sense to them."

Frey's family retreated to France after the controversy went down, but the author hardly believes he's the first to commit such sins.

"I don't have a whole lot of respect for the genre." he says of memoirs. "I think most writers of memoirs, and this is a very unpopular statement, do what I did. I think when you're trying to tell a story and write a book, you manipulate things. You embellish things, you fabricate things, you play around with things to tell the best story you can."

When Oprah asks whether or not Frey felt that the backlash was deserved, he tells her that "I thought I got ambushed, absolutely." But adds that "I made a mistake and at a certain point it came time to pay for it. And I paid for it."

The public is generally split on whether the backlash is deserved, but Frey insists that he only meant well with the book.

"I was trying to write a book that might help people," he says. "I always hoped that the book would help people who were addicts or help the family members or friends of addicts, that it would give them a different way to think about it." Something that Oprah acknowledges was a success.

Tune in tomorrow for another full hour with the author, during which Oprah herself will acknowledge her own mistakes and regrets from that interview in 2006.

Source :http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2011/05/a-million-little-pieces-author-james-frey-defends-memoir-on-oprah.html