Frey Scandal

As has been widely reported, The Smoking Gun went looking for James Frey’s mug shots from the arrests documented in James Frey’s memoir A Million Little Pieces, and instead found a lot of inconsistencies, exaggerations, or lies. The story has since been picked up on various blogs and in the mainstream media, so there’s not much to add here, except to say many in the press are wondering what effect this will have on Oprah’s book club. (Her next selection is still due to be announced on the 16th.)

A similar problem occurred last year, with Norma Khouri’s Honor Lost, in which the author alleged that her best friend had been murdered in an honor killing in Jordan and that she’d had to flee the country. Turns out she had been living in Chicago the whole time. Why not write novels, people?

Coincidentally, novelist JT Leroy, who had posed as a transgendered, HIV-positive former prostitute, has been unmasked by the New York Times as writer Laura Albert. Public appearances by JT Leroy were fulfilled by Albert ‘s sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop.