James Frey Archives - Citizen of the Month

This weekend in Los Angeles was the 11th Annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. It's an enormous literary event attracting thousands of readers to the UCLA campus to attend lectures by such high-profile writers as Frank McCourt, Mitch Albom, Mary Higgins Clark, Joan Didion, Sebastian Junger, Joyce Carol Oates, Gay Talese, Amy Tan, Susan Vowell, and Gore Vidal.

I was very honored to be asked by the festival organizers to moderate one of the most controversial seminars, titled "Plagiarism, Lies, and Total BS in Writing." The panel consisted of several noted writers:

Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard undergraduate who's been accused of liberal 'borrowing' for How Opal Mehta got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. I had just written a post about her, so I was very familiar with her situation.

James Frey, who wholly fabricated details of his outlaw life in order to sell his book, "A Million Little Pieces."

Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter who faked quotes and even entire interviews, and plagiarized from other newspapers.

Michael Hiltzik, who just lost his LA Times "Golden State" column this weekend after it was found out that he was putting phony comments on his own LA.Times blog.

William Shakespeare, noted dramatist and poet, who plagiarized most of his historical plots from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles.

A complete transcript of the seminar can be found at the book festival website.

Last week, Sophia was all upset about the James Frey story and his fraudulent memoir, "A Million Little Pieces." Well, actually, she was more upset at me.

"It’s pretty clear that the book got sold because they thought he was an alcoholic and drug abuser."

"So?"

"So, you have no grit in your life. You don’t even like beer."

"I like Merlot."

"No one wants to buy a memoir from someone who drinks Merlot. You’re like that depressing guy from Sideways."

"I’ve smoked pot."

"When was the last time you smoked pot?"

"When I was 14. But I didn’t really inhale."

"Jeez, you’re so vanilla. Did you know I once went out with someone who liked to be spanked."

"Weirdo."

"He was a college professor."

"Why would anyone want to be spanked? All my life, I’ve been proud that my mother never once had to spank me when I was a kid. What would I tell her now? Sorry, Mom, now I get spanked all the time."

"Hopeless."

So much for anyone ever buying my boring memoirs.

But what about fiction?

Well, today, there was another nail in the coffin for my non-existent writing career.

"Did you read Gawker today?" asked Sophia.

"No."

"Have you heard of Opinionista?"

"No."

"Well, it’s a blog written by an anonymous blogger, and it’s all about the inside stuff going on at her law firm."

"So?"

"So, she just revealed herself as Melissa Lafsky!"

"Do we know her?"

"No, but read this."

Sophia handed me "The New York Observer." There was another article about this woman:

In recent months, Ms. Lafsky has been fluffing the pillows for her landing, a sort of “soft opening” phase for her product launch. Profiled but not named in The New York Times in November, she posed so that her face was obscured; in this month’s The American Lawyer, she hinted that her identity would soon be revealed; and her blog plugged an interview with The Observer minutes after the interview was complete.

Of course, prior to this week’s non-spontaneous self-disclosure, Ms. Lafsky had already procured herself an agent—ICM’s blog-adoring Kate Lee —and worked up 100 pages of a manuscript loosely based on her life as a lawyer-blogger. (“It’s not a roman à clef,” she said. “It’s not The Devil Wears Brooks Brothers!”)

(Talented, Beautiful, and can Blog without looking at the monitor)
(photo by Melanie Flood)

I wasn’t sure what Sophia wanted me to make of all this.

"Good for her," I said. "Or is this another one of those "I hate Stephanie Klein – type stories?"

"Don’t you get it," Sophia replied, "There have been a number of anonymous bloggers that have gotten a lot of buzz by creating a mystery about who they are… and then they make a big reveal. Do you see where this is going?"

"No."

"Only a really dumb blogger starts using his real name right from the beginning. Like Neil Kramer. You should have just been "Citizen of the Month" and then had a big reveal."

"Too late now."

"There’s nothing new for you to reveal. Nothing buzz-worthy."

"I don’t know. We can say I’m gay."

"Hmm…not bad. We’re already separated. We can say we got separated because you decided you were gay.

"Good… good.. just how long do I have to be gay for?"

"Until you sell a book."

Jeez, that could be a long time."

"Well, you’ve always had a problem with procrastination. Finally, we found a way to keep you focused. No sex with a woman until you write a book."

"I’m not too sure about this idea."

"Too much like a bad sitcom episode?"

"What if I’m gay, but you decide to transform me back to being straight again."

"Yeah, then I can write a book instead of you! — "The Gay Blogger and How I Made Him Straight Again.""

"Would I have to go around the rest of my life being known as "The Man Formerly Known as The Gay Blogger?"

Note: After Melissa Lafsky signed with ICM agent Kate Lee and resigned from her law firm, she posed in a nightgown for a spread on female bloggers for a future issue of Fashion Week Daily.

Luckily, I’m all ready for my fashion shoot with my new Texas hold’em pajamas.