A Million Little Pieces

This addiction memoir opens with the author's awakening on an airplane with a broken nose, a hole in his cheek, and four missing teeth--and no knowledge of how he received those injuries or, indeed, of how he got on the plane or where he's going. James Frey writes candidly about his monumental problems with drugs and alcohol, his terrifying experiences, and his relationships with the fellow-addicts he encountered over six weeks of detox at a Minnesota clinic.

Many readers (including Oprah, who in 2005 made A MILLION LITTLE PIECES the first nonfiction selection for her Book Club) have praised the book for the raw and real-seeming quality of its reminiscences. However, allegations have since arisen that many of the events in the book were either extraordinarily exaggerated or entirely fabricated, including the author's personal involvement in a tragic car accident in high school and his three-month incarceration. The book's defenders, in turn, claim that a memoirist's perspective often involves a skewing of the facts, and the quality of the book is what counts, not its factual basis.

"Frey captures with often discomforting acuity the daily grind and painful reacquaintance with human sensation that occur in long-term detox....Our acerbic narrator conveys urgency and youthful spirit with an angry, clinical tone and some initially off-putting prose tics...that ultimately create striking accruals of verisimilitude and plausible human portraits. Startling, at times pretentious..., but ultimately breathtaking." (starred review) - (Kirkus, 2/1/03)

"Frey captures with often discomforting acuity the daily grind and painful reacquaintance with human sensation that occur in long-term detox....Our acerbic narrator conveys urgency and youthful spirit with an angry, clinical tone and some initially off-putting prose tics...that ultimately create striking accruals of verisimilitude and plausible human portraits. Startling, at times pretentious..., but ultimately breathtaking." (starred review) - (Kirkus, 2/1/03)

"Frey has said that he wanted his book to lay bare the torment of recovery in all its excruciating detail, and there is an audacity to the way he allows himself to appear so unlikable and seldom leavens the proceedings with humor or intimations that everything will turn out all right. But an unwelcome narcissism creeps through, too--it's evident that the sober Frey still digs the supertough, supersick baddie he was." - Baltagi Badi H. (New York Times Book Review, 6/8/03)

"Frey has said that he wanted his book to lay bare the torment of recovery in all its excruciating detail, and there is an audacity to the way he allows himself to appear so unlikable and seldom leavens the proceedings with humor or intimations that everything will turn out all right. But an unwelcome narcissism creeps through, too--it's evident that the sober Frey still digs the supertough, supersick baddie he was." - Baltagi Badi H. (New York Times Book Review, 6/8/03)

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