Shit Hits the Fan For Author Frey

In an extraordinary reversal of her defense of the author whose memoir she catapulted to the top of the best-seller lists, Oprah Winfrey rebuked James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces," on her television show yesterday for lying about his past and portraying the book as a truthful account of his life.

"I feel duped," Ms. Winfrey told Mr. Frey. "But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."

She added: "I sat on this stage back in September and I asked you, you know, lots of questions, and what you conveyed to me and, I think, to millions of other people was that that was all true."

In the three months after Ms. Winfrey chose "A Million Little Pieces" as part of her television book club, more than two million copies were sold, making it the fastest-selling book in the club's 10-year history. Alternately appearing to fight back tears and displaying vivid anger at the author and his publisher, Nan A. Talese, who heads an imprint of Random House's Doubleday division, Ms. Winfrey stared straight at Mr. Frey and asked, "Why would you lie?"

"I made a mistake," Mr. Frey (pronounced fry) replied, adding that he had developed a tough-guy image of himself as a "coping mechanism" to help address his alcohol and drug addiction. "And when I was writing the book," he said, "instead of being as introspective as I should have been, I clung to that image."

nytimes