Can James Frey Be Forgiven?

Posted by Lisa Rufle Aug 11, 2008

Before James Frey's memoirs met with outcries of fraud and fantasy, he was on the path to becoming an author who could do no wrong. Oprah praised him, even choosing A Million Little Pieces as one of her book club selections.

However as time passed, truths began trickling out that the facts Frey presented were full of fantasy and imagination, better suited for the genre of fiction. When the truth was fully exposed, Oprah publicly confronted Frey on the issue saying that he "betrayed millions of readers" and a class action suit was brought against Frey and Random House, the book's publisher.

Frey took a hiatus from the literary spotlight and focused on penning his third book, appropriately a fiction novel, entitled Bright Shiny Morning, which was published in May 2008. The book met with the expected responses from the media, mainly rehashing his past debacle and commenting repeatedly that this time Frey wrote an intentionally fictitious novel.

For the most part, the novel was met with generally positive reviews. A well-written, though slightly longer than necessary, tale of the great city of Los Angeles and he wrote of the city the way he wrote of himself in his past books. L.A. became more than just a bright backdrop to a foreground of action, it became a character in and of itself. Frey seemed to intimately know his characters and accurately introduce them to his audience, as he had in A Million Little Pieces. There is no doubt that Frey is an author who can write about subjects that people will want to read about, and all the controversy aside, Bright Shiny Morning, is an honest attempt at a story that just might redeem this once exiled author after all.