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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

UD Live Blogs
the Larry King/
James Frey Interview


I'm down the street at my mother's house -- that's where the tv is -- having convinced myself to inaugurate a bit of live-blogging here at UD by enduring a Larry King interview. He'll be talking to James Frey, who has become, at least for today, the bad boy he's dreamed of being all his life.

Frey had to embellish like hell in his memoir to make himself a big ol' Baudelaire bandit. Now he really is the degenerate du jour. Life - or rather, thesmokinggun.com - has handed him a beautiful opportunity to be ballsy and belligerent on national tv. Let us see what he can do with it.

Here's Larry:

"Worldwide attention ...best-selling book...update from Kelly Wallace... Good evening Larry...poking around not too long ago...firestorm of allegations...a few months ago ...highly coveted book club... days of addiction, crime, and rehab...no money, no job, no home, and is wanted in three states...'We could not find anything...' ... accuses Frey of fabricating significant parts of the book...Frey rejected those charges...melee with police... 'he was polite and cooperative...' local sheriff finds 'no record' of incarceration... "

"Thanks Kelly Wallace... what's your side, James?"

"My side is that I wrote a memoir...never expected the book to come under the kind of scrutiny it has...subjective retelling of events...yeah, a memoir is within the genre of non-fiction, um, I don't think it's necessarily appropriate to say I've conned anyone...disputed pages are eighteen...less than five percent of the book...um I mean I've acknowledged that there were embellishments in the book, that I've changed things...names were changed...you know there's a great debate about memoir and what should be most properly served, the story or some form of journalistic truth...I mean it's an individual's perception of what happened in their own life...this is my recollection of my life...a lot of the events took place while I was under the influence of drugs and alcohol...it's my story... a truthful retelling of the story... I am surprised...by the success of the book...by the reaction to the book...by the furor related to the book...at various points all along the course of the publication of the book I've acknowledged...things were altered, that I made changes to the book...absolutely... I mean the book is about drug and alcohol addiction...nobody's disputing I was a drug addict and an alcoholic..."