Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO – In a reversal of patronage for author James Frey’s fallen memoir “A Million Little Pieces,” Oprah Winfrey on Thursday apologized for the bestseller on her book list, then lambasted Frey and his publisher on live television from the set of her show in Chicago.

The pretext for Frey’s putative nonfiction work was demolished Thursday, though Winfrey’s image as truth-teller and book club maven was preserved two weeks after she defended the “underlying message” of Frey’s fabricated book in a telephone call to CNN.

“I regret that phone call,” Winfrey said at the beginning of her show Thursday. “I made a mistake, and I left the impression that the truth does not matter. And I am deeply sorry about that.”

Her reversal left Frey shaken and somewhat penitent, while bringing with it hints of repercussions within the publishing industry, notably its definition of the memoir genre that Winfrey challenged as wobbly.

“To me, a memoir means it’s the truth of your life as you know it to be and not blatant fictionalization,” she declared. “I feel that you conned us all. I think the publisher has a responsibility … I’m trusting you.”

She cut into Frey with equally clear language. She asked if he really underwent two root canals without novocaine. When Frey said as a nonfiction author that he “struggled with the idea of it,” Winfrey cut him off abruptly.

“No, the lie of it. That’s a lie. It’s not an idea, James, that’s a lie,” Winfrey said.

“Yes,” Frey responded.

Winfrey said her turnaround stemmed ultimately from viewers’ letters and concerns raised after she picked Frey’s book for the Oprah’s Book Club list last October.

“What she did today, I think she ultimately had to do. She was putting her seal of approval on something that every episode of her show rails against. At some point she had to fix this,” said Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University. “When the dust has settled, this probably has helped her. She’s stopped the controversy.”

Shortly after the show, Frey’s publishers apologized for the book’s stretching of the truth, and said they will include publisher’s and author’s notes in future editions of the book.

“We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of “A Million Little Pieces,”‘ Doubleday Books vice president and director of publicity David Drake wrote. “A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.”

Though the book still tops the New York Times paperback non-fiction list, Drake said no further copies will be printed until the explanatory notes are added.

But the horse has left the barn – it has been on the bestseller list for 16 weeks, with some 3.5 million copies printed since its 2003 release.

“The whole episode is a wake-up call for the publishing industry,” says W. Drake McFeely, president and chairman of the Norton publishing house. “It’s a good moment (for publishers) to get a little more rigorous.”

Across the board, publishers acknowledged Thursday they have had little ability to check the particulars of a manuscript, except to answer legal questions raised by their lawyers. It comes down, one said, to trusting the author.

Still, “we take seriously the responsibility for the veracity and credibility of our author’s works, and share a mutual responsibility with them in having their writing be accurate and factual,” said Stuart Applebaum, spokesman for Random House Inc., whose imprints include Frey’s hardcover and paperback publishers, Talese/Doubleday and Anchor.

Questions about “A Million Little Pieces” were raised not by the book’s editors – nor by Winfrey, who deferred to assurances by publishers – but by the Web site The Smoking Gun.

The site’s six-page expose early this month put Frey’s assertions of violence and drug use side-by-side with actual police reports.

“Turns out he’s a well-to-do frat boy who, you know, isn’t kind of this desperado that he’d like people to think he was,” Smoking Gun founding editor William Bastone said in a video clip Thursday.

Winfrey’s show could have been a primer on starting a book club conversation:

Pick a subject, something like addiction and recovery that’s guaranteed to spark deep and sundry feelings.

Interweave in it a theme timeless to humankind – say, Truth. Include an ironic twist – say, a non-fiction book that was ultimately untrue.

In Thursday’s drama, Winfrey played the role of moderator and also injured party. Frey and Doubleday senior vice president and publisher Nan Talese took the fall.

In a point-by-point question-and-answer, the author explained how he had fabricated and publisher why the story hadn’t been fact-checked. Winfrey blamed them for hoodwinking her, and took responsibility for defending the book in public.

He was addicted. There was a Lily, the woman he loved more than addiction. She did not die by hanging. She slit her wrists, one of several things he said he changed to protect the people on whom the book’s characters were based, Frey said. He was not so violent.

“I thought of myself as being tougher than I was and badder than I was, and it – it helped me cope,” he said.

Explanations were offered, but doubts remained, said Winfrey guest Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute for journalism. “When you learn some significant piece of a story is not true, you begin to doubt everything in the story,” he said.

While Winfrey’s imprimatur was gone from Frey’s works (a bestselling sequel, “My Friend Leonard,” is now on shelves), there were hints by the end of the program that redemption of sorts might at last be under way.

“I have been honest with you,” Frey said. “I have, you know, essentially admitted to …”

“Lying,” Winfrey prompted.

“To lying,” Frey said, using the word for the first time in the show’s closing moments. “I mean, if I come out of this experience with anything, it’s being a better person and learning from my mistakes and making sure that I don’t repeat them.”

(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.

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