Bad boy Frey returns, but will readers care?

Verna Noel Jones, Special to the Rocky

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Another memoir? Not a chance.

The publisher of controversial author James Frey's latest book clearly went to great lengths to avoid dusting up the ire of the mighty Oprah Winfrey this time. An opening page states: "Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable."

Also succinctly stated: "This is a work of fiction. References to real people and locations are used fictionally. All other names, characters and places, and all dialogue and events, are the product of the author's imagination."

The irony is that Frey's latest, Bright Shiny Morning, is a novel broken up by pages upon pages of "facts."

Despite the disclaimers, Frey presents a mountain of information about the birth of Los Angeles that appears on the surface (random Google searches) to be historically accurate in regard to the city's physical growth and melting-pot development. It's as if the author has found a uniquely purposeful way to thumb his nose at those who tore him apart for the earlier book.

No doubt readers will recall that Frey's best-seller, A Million Little Pieces, was first sold as the author's memoir, earning a cherished recommendation from Oprah's Book Club. Fact-checking by outside sources later proved that much of Frey's graphic account of his drug abuse and criminal life had been fabricated, leading to a humiliating public scolding of the author on Oprah's show. Frey's sequel, My Friend Leonard, was similarly questioned for accuracy.

With his new book, Frey takes no chances. It's clearly fiction, and that fact is unfortunately emphasized by a cliched cast of characters lacking the substance needed to make them even remotely believable.

The book basically tracks the lives of disparate people chasing elusive personal dreams in a city that seems to destroy more lives than it builds.

One young couple, Dylan and Maddie, have left an unhappy situation in the Midwest for a fresh start in Los Angeles. Though jobless, homeless and, in short order, broke after someone steals their stash of money, they soldier on under the mistaken belief that their lives can only get better.

Another couple, Jorge and Graciella, cross the Mexican border to give birth in the land of the free in the desperate hope that their baby girl, Esperanza, will grow up an American with countless opportunities.

Old Man Joe lives the simple life of a homeless man who sleeps, eats and begs along Venice Beach. Joe throws his life into a tailspin when he attempts to rescue a young, drugged-up girl from bad influences.

Meanwhile, Amberton Parker is a wildly wealthy, successful actor with an equally successful, beautiful wife. But despite all his fame and money, Amberton is a distraught, unfulfilled closet homosexual.

Frey favors stream-of-consciousness writing from time to time, using minimal punctuation and no paragraph indents. For example: "Although she loved her family, she dreamed of escape, of living away from her sixteen roommates, of living alone in her own house, her own big house, a house where her parents could visit and have an entire wing of rooms just for themselves, the wing would have a phone that did not accept calls from Mexico."

While this technique works well for the likes of poet e.e.cummings, in this 500-plus-page novel it quickly becomes tedious.

Worse, Frey's characters and situations are nothing more than shallow stereotypes. For instance, here's how Frey describes a motorcycle repair shop owner, who is also a member of a biker gang: He's "six-foot-five, 320 pounds, has a braided ponytail that hangs to his waist, is probably the scariest looking human Dylan has ever seen."

Then there's street person Ugly Tom, "who is indeed ugly. He's tall, though his legs are fairly short, he has patches of stringy gray hair. Three of his front teeth are gone, the rest are a deep yellow or brown, pockmark scars cover his face and neck."

And here is rich, mean-spirited Mrs. Campbell, who hires Esperanza as a maid: "The woman had white hair and piercing blue eyes, she was tall and gaunt, had a severe jawline and defined cheekbones, wore an expensive flowered dress. Even though it was only eight in the morning, she looked like she had been up for hours and was ready for a dinner date at the club or some cards with her bridge group."

How many times have we seen this woman before?

Bright Shiny Morning is a mass of distractions and derivative plots. The multiple factoids disrupt the book's flow, and the interactions among this volatile, multiethnic, multistatus cast seem merely a greatly watered-down version of Don Cheadle's movie Crash. Clashing cultures, clashing personalities, clashing stereotypes pervade as everyone searches desperately for better, more meaningful lives in the big-city chaos.

Given his track record, all I can say is that if Frey had exaggerated the lives of real people to create his characters, the book might have stood a chance.

But as it turns out, Frey's fiction proves far less inventive than the stories he once labeled as "true."

Verna Noel Jones is a freelance writer and co-author of the parenting book "Don't Drown in the Carpool." She lives in Aurora.

Taking no prisoners

If you think James Frey is returning to the public arena with his tail between his legs, think again. Frey will be a guest-blogger on Amazon.com all month. In addition, he promises flashy appearances for book signings, complete with "projected images, music, lights."

Meanwhile, he rants at his critics through his new novel. Consider this passage:

"Scandal, m------------, everybody loves a scandal . . .

"You know why? Because it's awesome, hilarious, awful, it's a f------ mess, and it almost always makes you feel better about yourself. So admit it, you love and your friends love and your family loves everyone you know loves a scandal, the bigger the better, the uglier the more fun, the more devastation the better you feel."

Bright Shiny Morning

* By James Frey. HarperCollins, 512 pages, $26.95.

* Grade: C