Comments on: The Chicago Frey Massacre

By: A.L.S.

A.L.S. — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:25:11 +0000

What kills me is that no one seems to be mentioning the long literary tradition of passing off novels as true-life books. A glance at the early history of the novel shows that the genre imbricates with psuedo-memoirs like Dafoe’s Flanders and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I too almost gakked my lunch when Larry King was surprised somebody could make something up. I mean, what is that? Lastly, I only looked at a little of the book, but why isn’t anyone talking about the real story: All those bizarre capitalizations that run through the narrative (like Gate and Plane and Attendant and Aisle). What’s with that?

By: Steve Clackson

Steve Clackson — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 17:49:41 +0000

There is no “Puff the Magic Dragon”? Nice way to find out! If publishers and writers like Frey lie it won’t be long before we find out politicians do too!

By: cynthia shearer

cynthia shearer — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 15:29:29 +0000

Hey, Scott…great stuff. I didn’t see it either, but I’m thinking this would be a good time for someone to whip out those old photos of Oprah from whatever photo shoot required her to pose topless w/ fake latex slave-whip scars on her back.
I remember seeing those somewhere, years ago. It seemed to me that she was very much *into* the fake suffering, and I remember laughing out loud at her wiliness, how she could translate fake suffering into income for herself.
Cynthia S.

By: Jody Tresidder

Jody Tresidder — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 13:50:23 +0000

Very funny comments about the King-Cooper literary tension!
King, as you implied, seemed like the idiot on a porch leafing through a Stephen King novel muttering “where in tarnation does the fella git his ideas from? Huh, huh?”. The concept of “imagination”, not to mention yards of addiction literature to raid in Frey’s case- seemed entirely new to him.
While I agree Oprah was playing slightly dumb about the publisher’s responsibility question, I lked the way she let two of Nan Talese’s absurdities fall into dead air. Specifically, Talese’s ghastly self-serving, name-dropping nonsense about a Carter memoir she’d approved – and two people having different recollections of the same incident -which had nothing to do with the Frey problem of incidents not happening in the first place. Secondly, her rubbish about the “layers” of checking a manuscript goes through. Copy – and proof editors – are looking for internal inconsistencies and typos – not narrative lies.
Also, I’ve read some highly plausible publishing comment sadmitting that it was an open assumption that huge chunks of Frey’s book were made up – and a calculated gamble to let him get away with it. This rings true for me.