Book review: A million little pieces by James Frey

Not sure why I’m drawn to the theme of addiction and self destruction (see my review on Joshua Ferris’ short story The Pilot). This week I was reading the very long story of James Frey. It’s a memoir, or at least was published as one, until The Smoking Gun blog exposed some inaccuracies in Frey’s story. Frey, that got huge publicity on Oprah prior to this revelation, was asked to come to the show again and talk about what he has done. He then admitted to have ‘fixed’ his story in some points.

Whatever. All this is irrelevant drama, since when I first started reading this book, I had no idea it was a true story, nor have I heard of the Oprah fuss. I just took it at the book store, I liked the cover with the many sparkling dots on it, and started reading. The book got me immediately. Frey has a very unique voice, and this voice goes deep, fast deep, under the skin, into your mouth.

He describes his feeling in a way that keeps you very close but very far at the same time, just like an addict feels with his body. It’s there, it’s controlling us, but in a way it’s separate to us. Nothing he says is too surprising, or funny, or weird, it’s just the way he says it. A Million Little Pieces is all about the prose, forget the narrative, it’s hardly there.

The book starts legging at around midpoint, maybe slightly earlier. Then the prose is already transparent to you, and what’s left is the narrative. It’s not much, as I said, and this is where I thought someone should have edited this book better. And if Frey ‘fixed’ his story, he should have fixed it a bit more.

The romantic narrative of the present (Lilly) is boring, the romantic narrative of the past only appears rarely and is under-developed. The manhood in the clinic is nothing too interesting. There’s no drama, and this I guess is the real pain of the addiction: after a while you’re just getting bored.