Goodness, why is James Frey and his mischievous mouth still being talked about? He lied. I'm not particularly bothered by that fact. First off, I assume everyone lies. Hell, the amount of liars in the government right now....But anyway, guess what? Drug abusers lie more. So the publisher reclassified fiction as memoir to make a buck? Guess what, making money is what they do. And memoir is by nature held to standards of objectivity and neutrality because it's personal. Who doesn't try to spin themselves and edit history to make themselves look better? People are unreliable narrators of their own tales. They lie to themselves, which is the bigger failing.
I mean, I lie. Not much. Mostly I just edit.
As for JT LeRoy--so you're a cross-dressing teenage truckstop prostitute, just plying the family trade under mama's guidance down there in WV, when you light out to California to live on the streets where you are discovered and sheltered by nice folks who put a pen in your hand and boom! A writer is born. My ass. Did the people who believed this story check their brains at the door? Unlike Frey, this persona doesn't even have a genesis in credibility.
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