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If it's good enough for Oprah, it's good enough for the rest of us.
That's the verdict at the end of what may have been the worst week "A Million Little Pieces" author James Frey has lived through since the days he was hooked on alcohol and drugs.
In the closing minutes of CNN's "Larry King Live" on Wednesday, during which a nervous-seeming Frey answered allegations of embellishing or fabricating parts of his memoir about addiction and recovery, he got a live, on-air call of support from his fairy godmother: Oprah Winfrey herself.
The media queen bee selected "Pieces" for her book club last October, putting the 2003 title back at the top of The New York Times best-seller list --- and inviting fresh scrutiny of some of Frey's wilder anecdotes: assaulting a policeman, spending three months in jail, undergoing a root canal surgery without anesthesia, and more.
This week, the Web site thesmokinggun.com, an affiliate of Court TV, posted claims that, among other things, Frey's three-month jail stint never happened. According to court records, his run-ins with the law were minor.
The charges haven't seemed to curb the book's appeal.
On Thursday, it remained in the No. 1 spot on Amazon.com's book list --- though some single-star reviews by readers on the book's Web page blasted Frey and wondered whether any part of the book can be believed now he's admitted some of it isn't true.
Carolyn Brown, a corporate spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, says, "It was the No. 1 book in our stores last week, and it's tracking to be the No. 1 book this week."
Locally, the story is the same. "The controversy about James Frey has not impeded sales," says Vivian Lawand, director of publicity for Chapter 11 Books.
"Customers aren't railing about it. They're not returning the book. There's nothing like that going on."
She heard one reader, without rancor, describe the book as "an exaggerated memoir."
David Solsberry, an applications developer from Kennesaw, thinks the controversy is a waste of time.
"I read this book, and it was very inspirational," he says. "If it touches other people as it did me, I could really care less whether part of it was fabricated or not. I truly wonder what is wrong with these people who constantly have to tear down anything that holds any value for anyone."
Lisa Macdonald, a stay-at-home mother in Marietta, feels much the same.
"The whole book is about [Frey] being a drug addict and an alcoholic," she says. "Maybe 1 percent is about him being in jail. I just think they should just let this poor man alone. He wrote a great book. Whether he spent three days or three months in jail is really unimportant."
But Merilee Durgan, an implementation coordinator for a health care company who lives in east Cobb County and owns the book but hasn't read it, may set it aside.
"I'm not sure I want to read a nonfiction book that has been partially or wholly fabricated," she says. "I am considering returning it."
On "Larry King Live," Frey admitted that he had first characterized "Pieces" as a novel when looking for a publisher --- then sold it as a memoir.
Just exactly what "memoir" means became central to the interview.
"I've acknowledged that there were embellishments in the book, that I've changed things, that in certain cases things were toned up, in certain cases things were toned down, that names were changed, that identifying characteristics were changed," he said.
Frey described his book as "a subjective retelling of events." Though he never denied the embellishment charges, he added, "I don't think it's necessarily appropriate to say I've conned anyone."
He repeatedly mentioned that the facts in question appear on only 18 pages, or 5 percent, of his 400-plus page best-seller. His halting, soft-spoken delivery made him seem a far cry from the tough guy he paints himself in the book. But as the hour came to an ambiguous close --- with Frey neither lashing out at his critics or owning up to flat-out fraud --- Larry King took one last caller: Winfrey, offering her first public comments about the controversy. For Frey, it was very good news.
Winfrey stressed that the book's inspirational narrative was more important than any factual inaccuracies.
"Whether he hit the police officer or didn't hit the police officer is irrelevant to me," she said. "What is relevant is that he was a drug addict who spent years in turmoil, from the time he was 10 years old. . . . And, out of that, stepped out of that history to be the man that he is today, and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves. That's what's important about this book and his story."
Her phone call cut into the 10 p.m. program "Anderson Cooper 360." The anchor didn't seem to mind, chatting with King about Winfrey's deus ex machina intervention.
Of Winfrey's continued support of Frey, Cooper said, "I'm wondering if . . . this is actually going to, in some way, help book sales."
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
