James Frey, I Don’t Hate You

See, here’s the thing: I never read your book. I will someday. My wife bought it and loved it. I told her I’d read it when I had time and I will. Even now. When she told me about the “no anesthesia dentist” thing, I said, “No way. That’s not true.” It would seem I was right. Still, it sounded like a good story and I like good stories.

I don’t know what you did to piss off the guys from the Smoking Gun, but I did read their article. Wow. They do not like you. It read to me less like an expose and more like a griping tale of revenge. They seriously had it out for you. Not that you didn’t lie, I’m not an apologist. But the article they wrote was less investigative reporting and more hateful screed. Here’s the thing: people are all bent out of shape because they feel you betrayed their trust or something, but I think those people were just reading to wallow in your misery.

It’s clear you exaggerated some things and perhaps even invented some. But that doesn’t change the fact that you battled addiction and overcame it. I think people are losing sight of that. I’ve known a couple of people in my life who have battled addiction (some who have overcome and some who haven’t) and I think the fact that you felt the need to make yourself a little edgier, a little more badass, to tell your tale and get people to read it isn’t a horrible crime against humanity. In fact, from the people I know who’ve battled addiction, the struggle to overcome it comes along with a fair share of lies.

The reality is that most people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs are normal people leading as normal lives as they can. Sure, there are some who are in the deep shit and end up dead in the gutter; but most addicts plod along, slowly killing themselves while repeatedly hurting those who love them. The “waking up on a plane bleeding and not knowing how you got there” moments are, in reality, a lot less frequent than the “I forgot Janey’s birthday because I was drunk” moments. But no one wants to read about that reality. Page turners about the life and times of Jim, the functional-alcoholic-middle-manager-who-started-attending-AA-meetings-when-his-wife-left-him aren’t flying off the shelves, now are they?

I suspect the people who read your book and were touched by it–really touched by it–are disappointed. The same way that a parent might be disappointed the first time they catch their child in a lie or when a loved one they thought had sobered up stumbles. They have a right to be hurt and angry with you and disappointed. But they aren’t raising their fists to call you a horrible man and a liar. They are disappointed, yes; but it confirms what they know. That addiction can cause people to screw up, but that mistakes won’t make you hate someone you really, truly love.
The people who shout, and scream, and melodramatically proclaim you are villainous scum, those are the people who just wanted to see the fall. They didn’t read your book for redemption–forgiveness and redemption isn’t what it was about to them. To them, it was about misery. Wallowing in your misery. Maybe it was to make their lives a little less miserable. You’re actually giving them more of what they paid for when they bought your book: buy one, get one free tales of falling from grace! Screw the redemption, they get more misery and a heapin’ helpin’ of righteous indignation!

So when I heard Oprah turned on you today on her show, I just thought I’d write a letter (which you’ll probably never see and which she probably will never see) to say that I’m glad you overcame addiction and I hope this mess doesn’t change that. Also to let you know as disappointed as I may have been with you, I was just as disappointed in Oprah. Not that I’m a huge Oprah fan or anything, but when she called in to Larry King, I thought she genuinely got it. She said that she was disappointed but that it didn’t change the message of the book which was about redemption. I guess the focus groups pulled off the studio tour got the better of her and she forgot all about that. Which is a shame, because she had the chance to really stop the rubber-necking and add some perspective.

Another opportunity lost.

I’ll be sure to read your book when I get a chance–I’ll probably enjoy it. I wish you hadn’t made things up and passed it off as true, but you did, and we can’t change that. Chalk it up to one more thing in life you shouldn’t have done, but did. If anyone wants to crucify you for it, maybe they missed the point when they read it the first time. Putting what you did into perspective, of all the horrible things people do to one another every day, lying in a book about being an addict is pretty far down the list. You did what addicts often do: you lied. You did what people often do: you lied. But instead of garnering that insight into the mind of a recovering addict, instead of pausing to reflect on that moment of shared human weakness, your millions of adoring “fans” decided to forget that the book touched them. So much for redemption. So much for forgiveness. But you know what? I don’t hate them either. I’m just disappointed. I guess they are as human as the rest of us.