Literary Paper Lions

Book packagers, drunken exaggerations, hoaxes: Why do we still expect authenticity from bestsellers?

Tim Cavanaugh from the July 2006 issue

(Page 10 of 10)

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If nothing else, a little more honesty about how the celebrity author market works might increase our enjoyment of the game, and lessen the shock when writers turn out to be phonies. Months after Frey’s downfall, a friend called to recommend A Million Little Pieces. I asked if he’d heard about the book’s fabrications. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I heard all about it. I don’t know how anybody thought it was true in the first place, because it sounds like something you’d hear from some drunk bragging in a bar. It’s all ‘Oh, I got all fucked up and kicked some guy’s ass, then the cops were beating the shit out of me.’ It’s a totally entertaining book.”