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*A Million Little Pieces is this generation's most comprehensive book about addiction: a heartbreaking memoir defined by its youthful tone and poetic honesty. Beneath the brutality of James Frey’s painful process of growing up, there are simple gestures of kindness that will reduce even the most jaded to tears. Very few books earn those tears -- this one does. It will have you sobbing, laughing, angry, frustrated, and most importantly, hopeful. A Million Little Pieces is inspirational and essential. A remarkable performance.*
-Bret Easton Ellis
James Frey is one of the most important, and controversial, writers of recent years, His memoirs A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard, were both published as “brutally honest” accounts of Frey’s battle with drug and alcohol addiction. Both became New York Times Number 1 best-sellers, and received coveted pride of place spots on Oprah Winfrey’s influential book club.
It was later revealed on an internet literary site that many of the incidents in these so-called memoirs had been, at best, embellished. This sparked one of most polarising literary scandals of recent years. Oprah Winfrey called Frey back on her show for a fiery exchange entitled “The James Frey Controversy”, and his publishers spent millions in legal battles. Frey, meanwhile, maintained that while some details had been altered for literary effect, the spirit of his work, and the reality of his addiction, remained absolutely true – and his followers agree, staunchly defending the power of both his writing and his story.
Now, Frey has emerged form all these scandals with his first novel. Bright Shiny Morning is a searing depiction of contemporary Los Angeles, and has received rapturous reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Tonight he will talk about what truth in literature means, about how truth and fiction can intermingle and enrich each other.
‘An absolute triumph of a novel. In fact it’s so good that it makes Frey’s real-life resurrection from crooked biographer to great American novelist far more impressive … Frey, a natural novelist to his fingertips, hits the deeper truths with this honest, vibrant and tender portrait of Los Angeles and the American dream …It can be no exaggeration to say that Bright Shiny Morning amounts to the literary come-back of the decade’ — Irvine Welsh, Guardian
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