James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.

I didn't think I was going to make it through James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, but I finally did. Yeah, yeah, I know, that book was soooo 2003. So, sue me, I'm six years late.

I was of two minds about the book, really.

On the one hand, I knew the whole hubub about Frey, and being a literary darling when the book first appeared back in, whatwasit, 2003, and I knew about the fall-out, the live t.v. dressing down by Oprah in 2006, and so forth. I didn't much care about whether or not Frey had "lied," I wasn't so invested in a work of literature that I could feel "betrayed" one way or another. And, having now had a bit more exposure to the tricky balancing act that is writing creative nonfiction through Vermont College of Fine Arts, I'm probably a little more forgiving about the slight shifting of certain facts, and of realizing that any work--whether it be a novel, a book of short stories, a chapbook of poems, a memoir, a book of essays, a news article, a history book, any and every thing--is a thing created from a point of view, or sometimes several, but there is no such thing as an Absolute Truth. There is only the truth as this person or these persons lived it. Look how open-minded and level-headed I was. I wanted to evaluate the book as itself, as a book, as a tale of addiction and recovery, of bottoming out and climbing back to the top, et cetera, et cetera. I wanted to see if the hubub was just car-crashism, just our voyeuristic need to read a hard/terrible story and have it be true, or whether the book could have stood tall on its own literary two feet.

On the other hand, I had a very hard time reading it. I almost gave up, three or more times. The book is 432 long pages, and not easy ones either. Frey is very often repetitive (words, sentences, entire paragraphs, physical symptoms, emotional feelings, etc.), Frey is often extremely graphic about drugs/withdrawl/sex, Frey sometimes seems to be trying too hard with fragmented lists of words that are either an attempt to come off as literary or to evoke a stream of consciousness. In not a few chapters, it feels like nothing is happening except him throwing up grotesquely and either dreaming of drugs or wanting them very badly. In the early chapters, it is difficult to distinguish the different characters from each other, only because there are so many of them and perhaps not enough physical details for this reader to distinguish them. There are moments where Frey crosses the line between drama and melodrama. A little over halfway through, after I'd already resolved to give up twice, it finally began to pick up for me. Things clicked into place, characters distinguished themselves from each other, and I began to feel invested in the story and in what happened to the characters in the book. And by the end of the book, I was glad I stuck with the book. It won't go onto any Favorite Books list; I don't want to ever read it again; but I am glad I stuck with it.

For me, the book did stand on its own two feet. I didn't think it was quite the Literary Feat of the Twenty-First Century, as many of the initial press said it was, but it was a well-written book. Even the flaws I mention above now seem like skillful moments of crafting on the part of Frey, in retrospect. It's a hard book to read? Well, withdrawl, rehab, and recovery is hardly an easy experience to go through. You almost gave up reading the book several times? Frey almost gave up on his recovery several times. The book is long and hard? Being forced to confront one's demons and dangers ain't exactly a quick and easy walk in the park either. Frey is repetitive, graphic, fragmented? Frey's thoughts, while recovering from and learning to live without his dangerous and many addictions, were probably quite repetitive, graphic, and fragmented themselves. It often feels like nothing is happening. Perhaps it felt that way in rehab. It was hard to tell the characters apart at first. Perhaps it was that way for him, too, all these new characters in this world into which he's been thrown and do recall, too, that he was still fucked up and so probably could barely tell them apart. Sometimes Frey crosses the line between drama and melodrama? So did his life. A little over halfway through, the story finally began to pick up? That's when things started picking up, falling into place, et cetera for him too. And, finally, in retrospect, you were glad you finished, though his story will never be your favorite story? Frey would probably agree with this assessment of his own life to that point.

I would cautiously recommend it, kind of. I mean, if you sat me down and ask for a list of books I thought you should read, A Million Little Pieces would not be on my list. However, if you sat me down and asked if I thought it was "worth it" to read the book, I'd say yes. But if you then asked why, I'd wearily refer you to this blog entry. Which has gotten way, way, way, way too long, repetitive, and fragmented.

You know.

Because.

Of what I just read.

This book.

Book.

Memoir?

Fiction?

Whatever the hell it is.

Who cares.

Settle down, Oprah and world.

Stop being voyeurs.

Stop needing the car crash with the real blood.

Sometimes settle for the ketchup stage blood.