Reading Frey With No Novocaine

Posted on February 8, 2006

William Loizeaux of the Christian Science Monitor ponders the implications of the James Frey/Million Little Pieces debacle and how it will affect the genre itself in the future.

Why would any self-respecting person engage in such a thing as writing a memoir? To begin with, Mr. Frey's book is not a memoir, let alone representative of the genre. Critical events were fabricated. It was written and first submitted as fiction, then fraudulently resubmitted and published as a memoir. Unsuspecting readers, thinking they were getting an honest remembrance, got Frey's flights, or descents, of fancy.
I don't mean to imply that memoirs need to be held to the standards of journalism, or even that imagination can have no place in it. A memoir is the creation of a mind remembering. The writer recalls and reflects on the past and evidence gathered about that past. Usually, the more evidence the better, but as any memoirist will tell you, remembering is always a tricky business.
There are many levels of accuracy. There are memories that the writer can verify empirically. There are memories for which the evidence is irrecoverable. And, moving farther from "objective truth," there are hazy memories, then conjecture, then informed imagination. Here fact and fiction do indeed become blurry.
*****
At its best, a memoir combines hard research, an engaging narrative, the intimacy of lyric poetry, and the thoughtfulness of an essay. The aspirations of memoirs are different from those of fiction or nonfiction, and the measures by which they are judged should also be different. A good story is important. Factuality is important. But the ultimate question about a memoir is: Out of how deep and considered a life does it spring?

We were visiting our friendly dentist today where we encountered outrage at the James Frey's fabrications. Did these professionals care about whether Lily existed or not? No. Whether Frey spent one hour or one year in jail? No. What really bothered him was that he fabricated the entire "root canal with no novocaine" scene.