Some of you may not know about the recent controversy over James Frey’s book “A Million Little Pieces.” It’s supposedly a dramatized account of his history of drug abuse and alcoholism and his stay at a Minnesota drug treatment facility (obviously meant to be Hazelden).
The book was an Oprah Book Club selection and is a tremendous best seller…and then the Smoking Gun web site exposed that many parts of the book have to be false, as they are not reflected by criminal records. For more, see “The Man Who Conned Oprah.” While Oprah may be sticking up for Frey, the book publisher, Random House, is refunding the book.
Oprah’s standing by Frey (probably just trying to save face), but if she still seriously believes Frey, she should have my wife Melinda on her show.
Melinda is, as many of you know, a psychiatric nurse who works at St. Mary’s Hospital (now a branch of the Mayo Clinic) and for many years worked in their own addictions center until they reorganized their departments. Melinda bought “A Million Little Pieces” because everyone in the psychiatric treatment wing she’s on now was buzzing about it and she was in the process of reading it when the story broke.
It’s easy for Melinda to believe Smoking Gun’s allegations because she’s noticed numerous elements which do not jibe with what she knows about drug treatment and what she knows about Hazelden (where she interviewed for a job in 1999). Even basics like the color of the nurses’ uniforms are inaccurate.
Seth Greenland points out that the James Frey story should give us all hope that we can get a biography endorsed by Oprah and make millions even though we lead boring lives.