Well, I'll never write a non-fiction...
I'm all for freedom of speech, I live in a free country. A country that, with all of it's amazing attributes, is full of half-truths. People don't always tell the whole story. A few presidents haven't even managed to tell the truth. Maybe they didn't lie to Oprah.
I sat through one of the more uncomfortable hours of my life today, watching James Frey take knocks on the chin from the most powerful woman in the country... Oprah. She called him a liar for his telling, of his story, about a certain point in his life. Why argue with that? Granted if a book is pushed as a true story, you expect it to be true, but Oprah took it personally. I'm sure that other books of this type have been full of exagerations, but since Oprah got her hands on it, she took it out on James Frey. Oprah waxed religious on this book, that's not Frey's fault. He never claimed it was a book to base your life on. It was his book, that's all.
Add to all of that, this guy is a recovering addict. Oprah would feel like a piece of shit if this guy harmed himself because she needed to recover her huge, allbeit, bruised ego. That's on her, I suppose.
I have sympathy for any writer, anyone, who not only put a few years of their life into a book, but actually write about their life in such a brutal way (exagerated or not), and then get dragged across the coals for it. It's a real shame this happened. The blame for it not only falls on Frey, but on Oprah and that horrid operation called the Smoking Gun that makes it their job to destroy people. Shame on them.
I have nothing in me that wants to read this book, only because it's just not my thing, I'd rather not be depressed for a week after reading a book. I may just go buy it anyway.
On a much lighter note: I've been working so hard on the template for this place I haven't written anything in days. I'll get back to the keyboard tomorrow. How do you like the place?
Send your comments straight to the source (me!) at racechick@bellsouth.net
Have a good day everybody. Keep your head up J.F.
I sat through one of the more uncomfortable hours of my life today, watching James Frey take knocks on the chin from the most powerful woman in the country... Oprah. She called him a liar for his telling, of his story, about a certain point in his life. Why argue with that? Granted if a book is pushed as a true story, you expect it to be true, but Oprah took it personally. I'm sure that other books of this type have been full of exagerations, but since Oprah got her hands on it, she took it out on James Frey. Oprah waxed religious on this book, that's not Frey's fault. He never claimed it was a book to base your life on. It was his book, that's all.
Add to all of that, this guy is a recovering addict. Oprah would feel like a piece of shit if this guy harmed himself because she needed to recover her huge, allbeit, bruised ego. That's on her, I suppose.
I have sympathy for any writer, anyone, who not only put a few years of their life into a book, but actually write about their life in such a brutal way (exagerated or not), and then get dragged across the coals for it. It's a real shame this happened. The blame for it not only falls on Frey, but on Oprah and that horrid operation called the Smoking Gun that makes it their job to destroy people. Shame on them.
I have nothing in me that wants to read this book, only because it's just not my thing, I'd rather not be depressed for a week after reading a book. I may just go buy it anyway.
On a much lighter note: I've been working so hard on the template for this place I haven't written anything in days. I'll get back to the keyboard tomorrow. How do you like the place?
Send your comments straight to the source (me!) at racechick@bellsouth.net
Have a good day everybody. Keep your head up J.F.