Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
First, there was his semi-denial on Larry King Live. Next came the public tongue-lashing by book empress Oprah Winfrey. And finally, we arrive at the final step in the public flaying of formerly lauded memoirist James Frey: the parody of his best-selling book, A Million Little Pieces.
In A Million Little Lies, written surprisingly well by the pseudonymous James Pinocchio (real name: Pablo F. Fenjves), we meet a tortured young man who wakes in the back of a Manhattan cab with a combination lock puncturing his left ear -- like Frey, who wrote that he woke up covered in vomit and blood, with four teeth missing and a hole in his cheek. Pinocchio is in great pain and has no memory of how he pierced his ear. He shows up at his parents' posh home, only to be shipped off to rehab.
Unlike Frey, who battled self-proclaimed addictions to every chemical substance known to man, our friend Pinocchio is hooked on dancing and Pinot Noir. The guys in Sideways would be proud.
As you might guess, Pinocchio gets the lock removed without the aid of anesthesia, much like Frey said he underwent a root canal stone-cold sober. Like Frey, Pinocchio battles a debilitating rage called The Fury. Even Pinocchio's cover mimics Frey's -- substituting a sprinkles-covered foot for a hand.
Lies is amusing, and it's certainly satisfying at moments to laugh at a writer who lied about his criminal past, turned a common problem into a sordid horror story and then made a mint off his fabrications. But what might have worked as a 1,000-word essay in The Onion is too long-winded.
And there's something mean-spirited about mocking Frey, who made a mistake and paid for it. Frey did so much damage to himself that parodying him seems, well, excessive.
A Million Little Lies
By James Pinocchio
ReganBooks, 208 pp., $14.95
Paperback original
To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com
© Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
