It's hard to dislike Oprah. Frey is probably unable to hang out with his friends anymore without being teased. I'll pick the publisher. Publishers have to be responsible anyway.

Posted by: neal | January 27, 2006 02:25 AM

I suppose the Publisher, but Oprah might want to reconsider jumping to someone's defense so quickly next time

Posted by: Zoots Mom | January 27, 2006 02:39 AM

Do you watch "House"? He has a saying, that is oft repeated. "Everyone Lies". And I think to an extent, everyone does lie.
I do feel badly for Oprah. She does have a good reputation and this guy hoodwinked her.

Posted by: Maribeth | January 27, 2006 03:48 AM

I felt so bad for Frey. He just sat with his head down the whole time. Every time he spoke when he was done he looked over at Oprah with this kind of "please love me again" expression on his face. The guy tried to sell the book as fiction. The publisher is the one who messed things up, they should've just marketed it that way. If it's a good book it's a good book. They didn't need to try to pass it off as a memoir.

Posted by: Adam | January 27, 2006 05:39 AM

The publisher is definitely culpable, as is -- of course -- Frey himself. The way I looked at it, Oprah got duped with the rest of us. Maybe I'd be more incensed about this if I'd actually read the book.

Posted by: Fraulein N | January 27, 2006 06:03 AM

I'd have to say the blame lies with the publisher.

Oprah called to find out if it was all true and they said yes. Publishers have fact checkers. Maybe they should have used them. Or you know, when Frey marketed it as fiction and they said no, maybe someone should have asked which parts were actually fictional.

I'm sure there was a dialog between the editor and Frey. I KNOW there was. They had to have known some of it was fabricated and I'm not beyond thinking they may have nudged him into the lying or at least okayed it. I don't buy the fact they had no idea. The editing process is a grueling one. I don't buy the editor was in the dark.

Posted by: MoMMY | January 27, 2006 06:26 AM

Here is my view. I loved the book as it was, I didn't care if it was a memoir or if it was fiction, in fact I that it was fiction when I started reading it. He tried to sell it as fiction and was turned down, until this publisher decided they could sell it as a memoir. I am sure both the writer and the publisher knew that not everything a truthful, and so he went along with it because why not? He wrote a book and wanted it published, there are few who would do differently. I don't think he expected to be an Oprah book club hit. So he (by the advice and just common sense) stuck to the story, with plausible deniability. Oprah's people should have been more thourough, the publisher should have written a notice at the front that said some items may be fictional. I am almost certian this will become standard practice now, just like in movie (Which by the way was because of the movie Rasputin). So who is at fault? We all are. For believing any memoir is purely truthful, we all write from our perspective, some more realistic than others. As Maribeth said quoting HOUSE "Everyone Lies." It is true, but its not always a bad thing. It's how we made it this far as humans without killing each other already. Give the guy a break, make the publishers apologize and put a notice on all similar books, and have Oprah just say its a good book, no matter how its catagorized. Otherwise she wouldn't have like it.

Posted by: Johnny Crow | January 27, 2006 09:25 AM

The irony in all of this, of course, is that it would be no big deal if this were just an average book that sells 10,000 copies and gets buried in the backlist soon after its release, as do thousands of other books every year. It's only because it was so popularized that it came under such critical scrutiny. And let's be clear: By its very nature, this book was prime fodder for deconstruction from the start.
All I can think through this entire debacle is how Frey must have been sweating it for months now, watching his little ol' book pick up steam and then get chosen by Oprah's Book Club, ending up #2 overall on last year's bestsellers list! It may even have been a relief for the Smoking Gun article to hit the Net--surely he knew it was coming!
I definitely agree with the majority of the commenters here--that the ultimate responsibility for the snafu lies with the publisher. I also think Oprah did the right thing by lambasting Frey on her show WITH his publisher (whatever that means, anyway--is she his editor? v.p. of editorial, sales, marketing? what?), and I respect her righteous indignation, though I do feel that it was a conciliatory recoil from the public backlash after she called the initial claims "much ado about nothing."
And then there's Frey. The poor guy will never receive critical acclaim again. And maybe he doesn't care--maybe that's not what he's after. He just seemed so much better than the dissemination of his credibility has made him out to be.

Posted by: | January 27, 2006 10:00 AM

"Oprah, Uma.. Uma, Oprah.."

Posted by: Davis | January 27, 2006 11:11 AM

Well, I blogged about it. I didn't like it because I thought it was very cheeky and personally, I am not that kind of a person that really "celebrates" people that have gotten themselves into addiction. Maybe it makes me snobby, but hey, there are always alternatives, I say.

Frey's book reminded me of Catcher In The Rye. Really, it's not something to write about.

A memoir worth reading? Alan Alda's Never Have Your Dog Stuffed : And Other Things I've Learned. Now here's a man that could've written about his life in MASH. Instead, he covered his life, his love, his neurotic family and what he wishes his children and grandchildren remember him by. If it weren't for that, at least read the excerpt about why you should never have your dog stuffed. It's rather profound.

Posted by: M | January 27, 2006 09:26 PM

First, the caveat that I haven't read the book.I don't think the issue is so much that Frey remembered conversations and subjective incidents differently than they may have actually happened. As DeAnn and others have said, that's something we all do every day. I really don't think people are upset over those kinds of subjective details. I think people are upset because Frey falsified major, objective events like time spent in prison and his girlfriend's death and receiving a root canal without Novacaine. Either you spent three months in prison, or you didn't. Sure, memoirs are a subjective genre and everyone exaggerates for humorous or dramatic effect or whatever--but when you start making up verifiable facts like that, you're in trouble if you're trying to sell your book as a memoir. So, who's to blame? Whoever decided to sell MLP as a memoir or a novel--and Frey himself. To say that since everything is subjective, the truth about MLP doesn't matter is, in my opinion, an abuse of postmodernism.

Posted by: Jessica | January 28, 2006 03:30 AM

My semi-uninformed opinion, because I neither read the book or saw the Oprah ep in question, is that Oprah, like everyone else in the world, has a right to an opinion and the right to broadcast it if she wishes. She gave this guy's career a huge boost and for her to made a fool of..well, let's just say I'd be pissed, too.

Regarding him, if he didn't recall the facts correctly, that's one thing. To purposefully embellish to the degree that he did and then STILL call his work a memoir is bullshit. If he'd called it fiction, or a work INSPIRED by real events, it would have been different. But he didn't. Yes, it 's a stupid book and doesn't compare to some of the REAL things that happen in the world every day, but people still see it as a violation because they BELIEVED him and IN HIM and IN his supposed redemption. So he sucks and Oprah told him so. Works for me :-)

Posted by: Isabel | January 28, 2006 06:07 PM

I don't watch Oprah. I haven't read the book. I only knew about it because of all of the blogging about it.

Personally, I'm not a big memoir fan (well, unless it's Meat Loaf or The Rock) which is odd, when you consider how much I love blogs. I find it very interesting to find out that he tried to get it published as fiction and the publisher chose to go with a memoir. That puts a completely different spin on things.

Honestly, I don't know who is to blame. I don't think it's that big of a deal. Most of the people that I've read who have read the book said they enjoyed it, regardless of whether it was fact or fiction. I think that's what is important.

Posted by: DM | January 29, 2006 06:16 AM

Doctor Who takes three prizes at the National Television Awards in a repeat of its success last year...

Posted by: Kylan Mayers | December 14, 2006 03:18 PM