James Frey's apology may be profound, but it doesn't excuse his excesses. Here's what he said a few days ago. "I wanted the stories in the book to ebb and flow, to have dramatic arcs, to have the tension that all great stories require. I altered events and details all the way through the book. . . . I made other alterations in my portrayal of myself, most of which portrayed me in ways that made me tougher and more daring and more aggressive than in reality I was, or I am. . . . My mistake, and it is one I deeply regret, is writing about the person I created in my mind to help me cope, and not the person who went through the experience."
As I point out in We, The Shamans there is a single commandment that must be followed when writing creative nonfiction, "Thou Shalt not create history." And, that works both ways. To leave something out that we know is true is as egregrious as embellishing or adding to the facts. As writers, if a story isn't good enough to attract the attention that we think it deserves, then so be it. Ours is not to alter the facts, but much like a newspaper reporter, we can only go where we are led by those same facts.
James Frey may be licking his wounds of deception, but they are being amply salved by the additional income garnered from all of the free publicity. Unfortunately, he is being rewarded for his notoriety. Oh well!
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