A Million little Pieces Still Recommended by Oprah

I talked a little about James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" in this post. Later I added this book in my 'Best of 2005' post. I read this book because I felt that it is quite unusual that Oprah has picked up this book and she recommended this book so powerfully that it became difficult for me to ignore this book. In a recent controversy 'The Smoking gun' alledged that James Frey's memoir is not completely non-fiction. The web site presented proofs that Frey exaggrated at many points and lied about several incidents in his book. They presented all their investigation as an exclusive report titled "A Million Little Lies, The Man Who Conned Oprah".

I was quite confused and I checked this thread on kottke many times during last few days. I wanted to write about this issue but I was not sure what to write. I wanted to become part of the Frey bashing. I loved his work and I thought that his words are powerful and would bring hope for many but I was disappointed about the lies. Then I read transcript from Larry King live where Oprah came to rescue not only Frey but many others who were confused about what to do with this book that they liked so much. Oprah said:

KING: So, it's still an Oprah recommend, right?

WINFREY: Well, I certainly do recommend it for all for -- well, for all of the people out there.

You know what? I was really touched by the woman who called, I think it was from Carmel...

KING: Yes.

WINFREY: ... who said, as an addict, what do I do now? What do I -- does this -- is this true?

If you're an addict whose life has been moved by this story and you feel that what James went through was able to -- to help you hold on a little bit longer, and you connected to that, that is real. That is real. And it's -- it's irrelevant discussing, you know, what -- what happened or did not happen to the police.

It gave me light and I realized that it is not really important whether James Frey hit the police car or not. What is important about James' book is that he turned out to be someone who he is now, after so many years of turmoil, addiction and alcoholism. So "A Million little Pieces" is going to stay in my list of best books and I will not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

tags: books, James Frey, Controversy, memoir, Oprah, A Million little Pieces