We were flipping through the press clippings included with It's Not Me, It's You, the hardcover debut from former Observer and Post writer Anna Jane Grossman and Los Angeleno Flint Wainess, and we noticed a blurb mentioning that none other than Fake Writer JT Leroy had contributed "his" worst breakup story to the book. Considering JT Leroy doesn't, you know, really exist, we found his essay to be delightful. A sampling:
Keith Kelly breaks got some sad news today. It seems that New York's belovedly buzzy Brit about town, Tina Brown, is coming up against the deadline for her $2 million Princess Diana bio — and not a moment too soon, as it's about time someone sheds some light on this under-covered personality. The time has come, finally, for her to really buckle down and get the book done.
Now that we're fully into week 2 of Fake Writer Day, it's time for all the weekly publications to play catch-up with their insights on Fake Writer James Frey. Time and Newsweek give us the expected recaps, just vanilla enough for red-state readers who have no idea what the hell is going on. Tom Scocca at the Observer however, has no qualms about flat-out calling James Frey a liar. Which, of course, he is.
Another day, another formerly anonymous blogger: Tomorrow's Observer will identify the writer behind the irreverent life-as-a-lawyer blog Opinionistas as 27-year-old Melissa Lafsky. Lafsky recently resigned from an associate position at Littler Mendelson to pursue a career as a writer; a November article in the Times about the then-anonymous lawyer said she was planning to pen a novel based on the "characters" featured in her blog (Littler employees will be thrilled).
Lulu Titlescorer is a scientific little tool that, based on the attributes of New York Times bestsellers from 1955-2004, allows you to predict the likelihood that a given phrase or title will be a hit. After entering all sorts of jejune possibilities (see above), we decided to analyze some of this week's bestseller lists from the Times and see, retroactively, what sort of chance they had based on title alone.
In this week's installment of the Times Book Review, you've got crazy bitches, Mormon playas, fucky families and a dose of Jacko — it is, in effect, the most mockable Review to fall before young Intern Alexis' eyes. And while she loves to snicker at absurdity as much as we do, she appreciates a challenge. Diversity of the stupid, if you will. Alas, not this week. After the jump, her guide to sounding literate.
We promise that this will be our last James Frey post of the, uh, minute — but it's really important, we swear! While the Smoking Gun has dug up and disproved that which can be disproved in rehab memoir A Million Little Pieces, much like us, the boys at Freakonomics have wondered what else Frey might've falsified. Apparently, there's a disturbing little resource called the Mortality Detail File, which provides information on every death in the United States. Oooh, why not use that to find out if anyone resembling Frey's lover Lilly, who hangs herself in a Chicago halfway house just as Frey is coming from prison to see her, ever existed:
Late yesterday, it was announced that James Frey would be adding an author's note to future editions of his memoir A Million Little Pieces. While we doubt this note will contain an unabridged reprint of the Smoking Gun's 4,000-page exposé; on the book's repeated inaccuracies regarding Frey's "criminal" record, we're sure it'll be just enough to appease Oprah and keep our grandchildren from attacking him 50 years from now.
The media shitstorm accompanying the revelation that A Million Little Pieces author James Frey embellished moments from his life to appear more bad-ass than it actually was (maybe that gunfight with three hundred Ohio cops was just a speeding ticket, but such is the subjective nature of drug-addled memory) has certainly thrown some heat on the big-screen adaptation of the book, currently in development at Warner Bros. Frey's allegedly mused about landing Tobey Maguire, Orlando Bloom, or Jake Gyllenhaal to play him, but if the producers want to eschew pretty starpower for a deeper commitment to physiognomy, we see a clear choice for the role: boybander-turned-actor Joey Fatone.
We were actually going to do a live-blog of "memoirist" James Frey's appearance last night on Larry King but, if you saw the program, you understand why we couldn't bear to put forth the effort. To put it mildly, it may have been the most uncomfortable, uninformative, painfully banal hour of television to which we've ever been subjected. When he wasn't nervously sipping from his coffee mug every two seconds (surely that thing was empty after 10 minutes), Frey deftly handled hardball questions. For example:
Yes, yes, we know it's ironic.
BREAKING! FAKE WRITER DAY(s) UPDATE! From the Random House website:
• James Frey will be on Larry King tonight to give his first interview (or statements of any kind, really) since the Smoking Gun first broke the news about his "dramatic embellishments." Inside scoop: we shit you not, he'll be bringing his mother on the program. Grab the kleenex, Oprah. [USA Today]
• In a "holy shit how far can this go" move, Random House will offer full refunds to readers who bought A Million Little Pieces directly from the publisher. If you scored your copy at the bookstore, have fun arguing with the pimple-faced staffer at Barnes & Noble. (If you actually do try to make a return at the store, do let us know how it goes.) [CNN]
While Hollywood continues to gaze navelward in response to the recent revelation that certain too-juicy-to-be-true hit literary memoirs were precisely that, the flake-averse East Coast publishing world has perhaps unsurprisingly taken a much harder-edged, pragmatic approach to the matter: Namely, the fucker lied, so you get your $24.95 back.
The Million Little Piecesgate shitstorm continues to rage you don't make Oprah, Queen of the Universe, look stupid without some serious consequences with threatening letters from legal pitbull Marty Singer flying (we feel your pain, Smoking Gun), the first brusque responses from accused memoir embellishist James Frey posted to his website ("I won t dignify this bullshit with any sort of further response,"), with further bullshit non-dignification to follow on his Larry King appearance tonight. And lest we not forget the JT Leroy scandal, which serendipitously (for trend watchers, at least) broke on the very same day: According to the NY Times, the supposedly HIV+ male truck-stop hooker turned memoirist and literary darling is a complete fabrication and played by a woman. With both authors' books in various stages of movie development, THR examines what effect the scandals will have on the productions, if any. In doing so, they stumble onto a fascinating philosophical dialogue on the ultimate nature of truth (as it applies to getting your movie made):
From last night's Publishers Lunch weekly roundup:
At Half King last night, luminaries of the magazine world came together for a reading of selections from The Best American Magazine Writing 2005. Vanity Fair's David Kamp was there to read "American Communion," his piece for VF on the relationship between Def Jam's Rick Rubin and the late Johnny Cash. After he was introduced, he walked up to the podium and said, "Hi, everyone, I'm JT Leroy."
• Star Jones scares her publishers into giving her $85K to promote her new book of bariatric affirmations, Shine. The budget is triple that of what was given to Nicole Richie to promote her roman clef, and God knows Richie wrote the better book. [Page Six]
• Anna Wintour is infinitely disappointed in staffer's decision to eat like a human being. [Lowdown (last item)]
• Jay McInerney knows his 11-year-old daughter is a hottie. If you can stop shuddering long enough, you might want to call protective services. [Page Six]
• More edgy analysis on the breakup of Chad Lowe and Hilary Swank: Apparently Lowe didn't like living in the shadow of his Oscar-netting wife. Really? Even if it got him free room and board in their awesome townhouse? [R&M (2nd item)]
• Scarlett Johansson is down for a three-way, so long as it doesn't include Match Point co-star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, who she outs as liking gossip, shoes, and twinks. [Scoop]
