Last night on the Larry King Show, Oprah called in to defend James Frey, who has been raked over the coals after the Smoking Gun revealed, in meticulous detail including police records, that he was no "Criminal with a big C", but just another hard-partying frat boy. Among many exaggerations, Frey, instead of having spent three months in jail, police reports show that he had been held for five hours and was bailed out by a friend. Oprah, who had chosen A Million Little Pieces for her book club and was largely responsible for driving the sales up to the current 1.77 million level, said that even though "the names and the dates and times have been compressed ... what is relevant is that he was a drug addict ... and stepped out of that history to be the man he is today and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves."
Names and dates compressed? How about using the death of two high-school classmates for cheap emotional effect? Frey defended himself by saying "The book is about drug addiction and alcoholism. The emotional truth is there." Yet he had previously claimed that it was all true, and when he was on Oprah's show, Frey had said, "I think I wrote about the events in the book truly and honestly and accurately." There's a big difference between "emotional truth" and "honestly and accurately." It's the difference between saying that Saddam Hussein is a horrible dictator who gasses his own people to Colin Powell saying "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
The "emotional truth" is what Bush and his defenders are arguing when they justify the war in Iraq. But by lying about the facts to the American people, Bush and company have forever tainted government. How will we ever trust those in power again? Should we trust that what they believe to be the "emotional truth" of an issue is more important than the actual facts?
It is disappointing that Oprah and Frey's publisher have not spoken up for honesty. Doubleday, the publisher of A Million Little Pieces, is trying to have it both ways. In a statement, they said "Memoir is a personal history. By definition, it is highly personal. He represented to us that his version of events was true to his recollections." At the same time they are offering refunds to readers who feel that they have been gypped. Oprah, by saying that Frey has stuck to the "emotional truth" has joined in the battle against truth. From now on, all memoirs will be held up to "the Frey Standard." Readers will look at each memoir and wonder if it is a recollection of real people, times, and places, or is in reality only "emotionally true."