MORE FROM HUFFPOST
MORE FROM HUFFPOST
James Frey
His new novel, 'Katerina,' proves he's a better scammer than writer.
Most writers are afraid of what will happen to them if they write their memoir. The consequences of telling our truth ranges from benign (your family will be mad at you) to quite serious (you might be facing a lawsuit). The problem is that most memoirists don't understand what constitutes a legal breach, and almost everyone is as worried about hurting someone as they are about the idea of getting into trouble legally.
The first act of Robert (Bootycandy) O'Hara's Barbecue consists of four scenes, two each in alternation, depicting a lower-class white family and a lower-class black family on what looks like a picnic in a shady Middle America forest preserve.
Mary is advocating that writers not be chained to exactitudes. But in giving this kind of permission, she is opening the door to a small battleground where absolutists are going to have a field day with her. For black-and-white thinkers there is truth or not truth.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
WHAT'S HAPPENING
It's 2015. Everything and everyone out there is competing for eyeballs. And when it comes to the Internet, consumers are certainly not lacking for material.
But worse than a six-year-old making the stuff up is Tyndale House self-righteously taking the book off the market because it isn't literally true, as if that should be a big surprise! It's not real? No kidding. Keep selling the book. People enjoy it.
Is it just a bad book, worthy of your disdain, or does it maybe trigger in you something you're just not ready to face? And yes, please support women memoirists. We need each other!It's not uncommon to hear agents at conferences shutting down bright-eyed aspiring authors with a simple, "I don't represent memoir."
I determined that my own story, with its emotionally and sexually abusive mother, and physically abusive, but bullied and mentally ill father, would be easier for readers to connect with if I wrapped it in a fairy tale.
Vineyard owner and winemaker James Frey is perfecting the art of blending wine.
