James Frey Lands HarperCollins Contract

Posted on September 13, 2007

He's back again. HarperCollins is going to publish a new novel by disgraced author James Frey, who passed fiction off as a memoir in the form of A Million Little Pieces and was royally and publicly flogged for it by Queen Oprah.

But after the book's inaccuracies were exposed, Ms. Winfrey angrily grilled Mr. Frey on national television. He was apologetic and his publisher added a disclaimer to later editions of the book in which the author acknowledged embellishing his story.

Mr. Frey's memoir touched off a broader debate about the blurring of lines between works of fiction and nonfiction, particularly in the field of memoir-writing. It also called into question how much responsibility publishers have for assuring that their nonfiction titles are factually correct.

HarperCollins Publishers says that it will release Mr. Frey's "Bright Shiny Morning," a novel set in Southern California, in the summer of 2008 through its Harper imprint. "There will be a lively media response to the book, but we're publishing it because it is an extraordinary piece of work," said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of the Harper imprint. "He has a huge number of fans. They will come readily and eagerly to this novel, which is emotionally powerful."

Frey's ability to write fiction was never in doubt. It was his ability to tell the difference between truth and a big fat lie that got him into trouble. Has he groveled enough that he'll be accepted by his hoodwinked readers? Surely there was some other, more deserving writer in the slush pile who deserved the new book contract? Because we're pretty sick of hearing about James Frey.

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