As much as you make an excellent point about what being worse – being or shaming the liar – I guess I don’t have an answer for that. (Yet.) However, I must wholeheartedly stand by the review I wrote a few months ago on “A Million Little Pieces” which I’ll share here:
Only when I was halfway through this extraordinary book was I informed of the controversy surrounding it. Now that I’m done I’ve decided that I don’t really care how much is fiction and how much actually happened to him. The point of the book and the way the suffering of people trying their damnedest to recover is too beautifully and aptly expressed for me to nitpick over whether or not he had one or two root canals.
When I read Elizabeth Wurtzel’s, “Prozac Nation”, I was like, “YES, YES, YES!!! THIS is my reality! THIS is the naked face of the disease!” Did it help me to know that it was her own experience and not fiction? Absolutely. But what if a friend had explained their hell to her in exacting detail but didn’t posses Wurtzel’s writing talent? What if Wurtzel was then able to translate that suffering into a book that would help to ease the pain of millions? Should that be discounted?
I feel the same way for “A Million Little Pieces.” If in whatever way Frey has managed to open the eyes of family and friends of addicts and to offer even a glimmer of hope to anyone stuck in that horrible place then I can do nothing but fully support it.

I thought the public spanking Oprah gave Frey was absolute genius on her part. The punishment perfectly fit the crime and she has nothing to apologize for. On the contrary, I praise her for having the guts, brains and integrity to confront this man and his publisher Nan Talese on live TV and rip them into a million little pieces and hold him accountable for telling lies to her and her viewers. It was television and its best and may have been Oprah’s finest hour.

I don’t know…anger to that level usually requires a good look at yourself and why you’re so angry. Obviously he did something very wrong, but I agree that perhaps Oprah was trying to alleviate some of her own humiliation.
And the reasons for the apology? Well, seems like she finally came around to that point of view and now wants to alleviate some of her own guilt — it has nothing to do with Frey.

I LOVED Oprah public smack-down of Frey. He lied to her and she brilliantly dragged him back on TV and BEAT THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS out of him and Nan Talese. It was television at its finest and she has nothing to apologize for.

Wow. OK, so far we have two votes for “television at its finest”. (I’m not sure whether TV at its finest is an ethical thing, but I’ll let that slide….) My real concern was “What makes Oprah the public flogger for the rest of us?” I guess she does have something of a right in this instance. She’s the one who built James Frey up, put him on her book list and brought him thousands of new fans and huge attention, so I suppose she felt it was up to her to bring him down publicly when he turned out to be a liar. But did she do it purely out of duty, or out of revenge? That’s all I’m asking. I got the sense that she wasn’t just crusading for truth, but digging in the knife because she felt personally humiliated and was trying to salvage her reputation above all. It didn’t look so much (to me) like she cared about her fans’ feelings as she did about people potentially not respecting her if she didn’t distance herself in the harshest possible way. Perhaps cooler heads could have prevailed if they’d waited another day or two to have that interview. In any case, it seems Oprah now agrees.
Actually, I felt less sorry for Nan Talese than James Frey in that memorably tense exchange, even if she wasn’t the liar, but the liar’s publisher. Why? Honestly I’m not quite sure. I just feel that she had a responsibility to fact-check the book and either she fell down on the job or deliberately glossed over the red-flags that arose during the vetting process in order to make money on what looked like a winner. I mean, the author’s just some guy who comes shopping a manuscript to your door, but a publishing house is supposed to show judgement and forethought before putting materials in print and labeling them as true. In any case, Nan had been in the business forever and should have known better. When Oprah called her out on it, I squirmed, but also felt she owed the audience an explanation.

I lost a lot of respect for Oprah Winfrey that day she invited Mr. Frey back to her show only to berate and humiliate him. Her initial response was appropriate, which was to say he is entitled to some poetic license. I agree with that sentiment. She changed her tune after a public and private outcry and decided to scold him. She knows her power so she decided to destroy his career. Oprah givith and Oprah can taketh away you see. So this week, in light of her apology, I have regained some respect. I will have complete closure on the topic when she invites him back to her show and Publically apologizes. As a side note, I work in the field of mental health/substance abuse and absolutely loved Mr. Frey’s book, “A Million Little Pieces.” He is a brilliant writer. I look forward to his future works.

It was a memoir. He took literary license with some of the facts. So what? The core of the story was true, and it helped a lot of people. I think if you took most memoirs apart you’d find people and events that weren’t quite the way they were portrayed in the book. Also, you’d get a differently slanted story from each person who lived through the time and events being written about. I like Oprah, she does a lot of good in the world, but I cringed when I watched that show. It was beneath her.

I don’t know if Oprah invited him on to berate and humiliate him. I think she primarily invited him on just to find out face to face what was true and what was a lie and the more lies she got him to confess to, the more disgusted she became (her and the audience were especially disturbed that he had fabricated the way Lilly died causing Oprah to question whether there even was a Lilly).
If you watch the show, she never once attacked him or even raised her voice at him. She just asked a lot of really good questions about why he lied and he did not have very good answers. The moment where the real humiliation took place was when she asked him about root canals without pain killers. Oprah wanted to know if that actually happened and James said something like “as far as I remember”. Oprah calmly replied “James that doesn’t make any sense. That scene goes on for two or three pages and you say there were two root canals, so I’m asking, were there two root canals?”
James just stuttered, and then his bearded mouth opened wide with a look of “stop picking on me Oprah” When the camera captured the wimpy defeated look on his face as his bearded mouth hung open, the humiliation (demasculinization as the NY Times called it) was complete and total and Oprah decided to bring Nan Talese out because James at that point just seemed utterly incapable of defending himself coherently and had his dignity thoroughly removed.
I think fabricating crucial details in a memoir is reprehensible and I really admire Oprah for holding James and his useless publisher accountable. It’s not fair that he gets to lie his way on to the best seller list replacing honest authors with true stories along the way. That type of behavior only encourages others to lie and the fabric of our society is built on trust. It also causes us to doubt the stories of honest people. It was also disrespectful to Oprah personally, her staff who he had a very strong relationship with, and the millions who watch her. He doesn’t have the right to abuse her trust and the trust of her staff and audience and I was so happy to see her teach him some manners.
It was refreshing to see a broadcaster with enough integrity to hold a high profile guest accountable for telling lies and to do it face to face on live TV. Was part of her motivation self-serving? Possibly, but it still took brains and courage to conduct such a powerful cross-examination on live TV. And all she really did was ask tough questions. Is the media supposed to stop asking tough questions of dishonest people because they might be humiliated by having no good answers?

Thanks again Jane for your thoughtful comments. I think you are beginning to sway me on this one! I do agree that memoirists have a very serious obligation to be truthful (artistic license is one thing, manufacturing facts or outrageously exaggerating events is another). Frey’s description of the root canals without anesthesia is an insult to the dental profession, frankly. No reputable dentist would do such a thing–for heaven’s sake, it might cause a heart attack, especially in someone who was still detoxing. I don’t excuse what Frey did. Especially when talking about the experience of addicts, I think it is dangerous for a publisher to put out a book sprinkled liberally with a pack of lies and label it as complete truth. What if someone who is truly struggling and in pain reads this, and can’t identify because the experiences in it seem too extreme and ‘out there’? Recovery, it seems to me, is about honesty–coming clean, as it were.
(Also, as a writer, darned right it pisses me off when a liar and a cheat gets ahead of me in line for recognition in the publishing world. It’s hard enough to make it in that business, without rat-finks misrepresenting their way into book contracts and ruining it for the rest of us.) I have little if any respect for the guy–except that I do think he’s got quite some dramatic flair. He had me going, for sure.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing your perspective on that infamous Oprah show. It’s great to hear another viewer’s take on what they saw that day. While we may disagree on her handling of it (I still say the revenge angle took some of Oprah’s moral high ground away, and she took too much relish in kicking the guy when he was down), I appreciate what your point of view adds to my understanding of the ethics of the situation.

I understand your point about it looking like an act of revenge on Oprah’s part, but I don’t mind that. In fact I kind of admire her for taking revenge. It showed an element of backbone and self-respect that we don’t see enough of in women. It’s better than just being a doormat and allowing this man to abuse her trust, the trust of her staff, and the trust of her loyal audience, and I admire how skillfully she was able to execute her revenge if that’s what it was.
I also think it was good that Oprah did something so dramatic to send a powerful message that this kind of thing is not acceptable. Dishonesty in all spheres of public life, from politics to publishing has become so pervasive that people shrug their shoulders and think, “he exaggerated, big deal.” Had Oprah simply forgiven him, or just given him a slap on the wrist, then the message being sent would be that you can lie your way up the bestseller list and the worst that happens is a bit of criticism. So I think on balance it’s very good that Oprah decided to inflict a far more severe punishment to send the message that this type of dishonesty is utterly reprehensible and does damage on so many different levels. Now it might be arrogant of Oprah to act like the moral authority of the universe scolding a best-selling author and eminent publisher like they were children, but someone had to stand up for truth in America so it might as well be her.

Frey is a disgusting disgrace. Nobody should buy any of his books. Also, he’s pretty illiterate. “Sytle” my ass! To think of all the really good, deserving writers who are out there whose work will never see ink…the book publishing industry is a disgrace–grovelling to Oprah’s vapid pop-culture tastes. And now Sarah Palin from HarperCollins, and a series from Porky Pig (Glenn Beck) from Simon & Schuster. Shame on all of them. I hope they go deeper into the toilet with this s–t they are shoveling.

I think Oprah was quite right to shame him. And I think being a liar is much worse than shaming one. He should feel ashamed anyway, but I’m betting with his ego … Anyway, that’s a little off subject. I would actually think less of her if she did in fact apologize to him. It is he who ultimately victimized people in some sense of the word, not Oprah. She was standing up for herself, certainly, and for all those people who felt unreasoned sympathy with Frey. He disgusted me then and still does now. Thankfully, when I did finally read the book I thought it was awful anyway. Totally ridiculous and terribly written.
As for amends, I think they are useless and selfish unless you have done something really awful (murder?). Mostly I think we make amends in order to make ourselves feel better not really the person to whom we are making the amends. The few times I have considered it, and the couple I have done it, I have been told by the person to whom I am making the amends that she would rather not revisit those things. One friend even said, “You’re only doing this to make yourself feel better. So… Do you?” I didn’t. And intuitively I knew that was the case but I went ahead anyway because the idea of resolution made ME feel better.

I want to leave Frey’s fabrication aside for a moment. In my own experience, if I’ve “wronged” someone in front of others, I think it is only ethical to apologize publicly. The point is Oprah thinks she owed him an apology. I assume that she is apologizing for whatever she did on her show (I didn’t see it). For that, I think she owes him just as public an apology. Calling him personally on the phone is cowardly, in my book.

All I can say is “Shame on you Oprah”. And when did we all become so sanctimonious, pious and bloody righeous? Brilliant author, brilliant books and I quite frankly dont give a damn if some artistic licence was taken. Get over yourselves please!