Tuesday, January 10, 2006

a million little cliche headlines

That James Frey sure does take a lot of creative liberty

I read this book a few years ago, when all I could read was memoirs. A friend recommended it, and I tore through it, thinking it was amazing. After a while I realized it's one of those books that drags you in, but then you realize that it wasn't nearly as great as you thought, it's just that you read it super fast. I was way too gullible to ever doubt its validity. Oh well.

The whole thing is interesting, though. Even though I realize memoirists may need to add some spin to keep things interesting, I like the stories better when they seem more real, but just told better than the average person. Everyone has some stories in them, but only a few people here and there are actually writers.

2 comments:

qory said...

I haven't read the book, so I prob should keep my mouth shut, but if it's a memoir about his past drug abuse -- why are people freaking out he distorts the facts here and there? He was on drugs.

/I found your blog thru audioscrobbler, btw

e said...

Some people are freaking out unnecessarily, but.... if you read the book, or the article, the incidents he lied about are pretty central to the story in showing how much of a badass he was. While it's only a part of it, there's a lot of other parts that many have thought to be unrealistic so this isn't really helping. Not to mention, he tried to publish the work as fiction and it was rejected, and as non-fiction, it was published. All of it put together makes the whole thing less believeable...that doesn't mean it's a bad story, but if you think it's amazing because it's all true then it sucks.