17 May 2011

Gotta get down on Frey day

"Frey's major public shaming will serve forever as a window into the aggressive, hit-hungry world of book publishing, and the spectacular pressure on writers to sex up their tale, regardless of whether it's accurate. But when Frey told Winfrey, 'I don't have a lot of respect for memoir. I think most writers of memoirs do what I do, you play around with things, you tell the best story you can,' it was a flabbergastingly cheap and lazy shot.
"As someone who's written a memoir, who has good friends who've written some fantastic memoirs, I think it's safe to say that memoir doesn't have a whole lot of respect for Frey either."
-Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon about James Frey's first appearance on "Oprah" this week; the second airs today. I recommended Williams' memoir GIMME SHELTER in my list of books about New York real estate

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