Eat, Pray, Hype

"I haven't been this excited since Bono was here."

And so began Oprah's Eat, Pray, Love-fest. Friday's episode was all about Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir detailing her travels to Italy, India and Indonesia to rediscover herself. I have to say, as a writer, hearing anyone get that excited over an author is pretty exciting. Hearing it from Oprah freakin' Winfrey, who has talked to every author from Cormac McCarthy to Jane Hamilton, is pretty impressive.

Sure, Oprah gets excited for just about anything. (Ladies and gentlemen, today we're talking about hummuuuuuuuuus!!!) There's a fine line between enthusiastic and hyperbolic. Her fans see the former, her critics the latter. When talking about a relatively spiritual memoir like Gilbert's, it's hard to walk that line (it's somewhere between the pasta and the preciousness). But combining the overblown with the ethereal seems like an Oprah specialty, as opposed to, say, Tyra Banks, who eats overblown for breakfast. (Now with more fiber!)

So it was great to see Oprah dedicate a whole hour to an author not because Eat, Pay, Love is her new Book Club choice (that would be Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera) but because she was just so damn excited to talk about it. (Even if, strangely, they made no mention that it's being developed as a movie starring Julia Roberts.)

According to Oprah, "Women have been carrying it everywhere. I've seen it on planes, buses and trains." Buses? Yeah, I think I saw Oprah on the 49 Western yesterday with her Trader Joe's bags. But the book has already been incredibly successful. However, a lot of the reviews, even positive ones, were hesitant to rave. The New York Times observed how charming Gilbert's prose is while rightfully criticizing how easily her problems tend to get fixed (she asked the universe for a divorce and - poof! - her husband, until then stubborn, signed the papers). And Slate's Katie Roiphe couldn't rave about it before going on and on about how horrible the book sounds and how, of course, she would normally never read a book like that.

That, most likely I presume, being Chick Lit. The label is ridiculous in this case. Yes, it's a woman's memoir, and yes, there's some cutesy descriptions about how eating pizza is really empowering! (Which I happen to totally agree with.) But Gilbert is an incredibly charming, qualified writer, having been nominated for three National Magazine Awards, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the National Book Award and National Book Critic's Circle Award. If a man wrote this book, this whole paragraph wouldn't be necessary. God forbid a female author write something both spiritual and funny, profound and cute.

So, luckily, she was perfectly open, modest and down-to-earth with Oprah about her journey, her epiphanies and her success. She's the kind of person who can throw out phrases like "word salad" without coming off flaky and can discuss a journey devoted entirely to making herself feel better without sounding guilty or entitled. (For an example of how she explains - nay, make that celebrates, and kind of awesomely - her story's inherent selfishness, check out the E,P,L F.A.Q.)

One mistake I think Gilbert and Oprah both seemed to make was confusing someone relating to the book with someone experiencing the exact same thing Gilbert did. When talking about her late-night breakdowns in her bathroom, Gilbert looked at the audience and said, "Who among us has not met our bathroom floor tiles at 3 a.m.?" Um, me? I read your book and haven't met my tiles at 3 a.m. Do I count? Oh, wait, are we also including being drunk? No? Nevermind then.

But Gilbert flat-out admits that she didn't write this book for anyone else, and that's maybe the most "rock star" (Oprah's words) thing about her. Unlike so many reviews about the book and interviews with Gilbert, this was one whole hour without the author having to justify, defend or apologize for her lucky circumstances (such as affording the travel thanks to her publisher's advance). She might not be the literary equivalent of Bono. (Who is, then? Dave Eggars? Chuck Palahniuk?) She's not even a rock star. She's a really good writer. And that's just as exciting.

(Thanks to Oprah.com for the pics.)

Also check out: Cradle to Tears.
And: Update: Oprah Rips Frey a New One.

Update: Oprah Rips Frey a New One

2/3/06 - Updating the update: This article was chosen as an Editor's Pick of the Week at Blogcritics.

I've tried to avoid the popular blogging style of just listing a bunch of links to other sites, but I was researching responses to Oprah's shredding of James Frey and basically everyone has said everything there is to say. I'm sure there's a lot more out there, but I'm only including a handful. Let's see:

Slate thinks that Oprah was really just redeeming herself rather than focusing on Frey.

The New York Times noticed an undercurrent of Oprah's usual women-violated-by-lying-cheating-macho-men theme.

TV Goddess questions whether any memoir is ever 100% factually accurate.

The Huffington Post compares Oprah's apology with President Bush's lack thereof.

The Millions asks the question that Oprah oddly ignored: Did he or did he not originally try to shop this book around as a novel? And, if so, did his publisher know this and tell him to label it as a memoir?

Gawker gives a play-by-play recap of the episode in two formats: A live blog and then a hilarious blog with pictures.

Finally, the strangest one has to be Rosie O'Donnell rambling about Frey in her bizarre, child-like blog.

I have to admit I was cynical about the whole situation. I assumed that Oprah was merely reacting to national criticism that she let Frey off easy and was therefore trying to save face. But as I watched the episode I do think she truly feels that she made a mistake in originally supporting Frey during the controversy and really is upset about it. I also think Frey was a bit stunned to have to admit to lying (well, he barely admitted it. He said he "probably" lied).

As he sat there either stuttering or looking completely dumbstruck, I wasn't quite sure why he agreed to be on the show. My cynical side says that any attention will help sell books (as of today, A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard are still hovering around the top of Amazon's best-seller list). But maybe he really did want to apologize and set the record straight. Maybe what he really wanted to do was explain how you can change some details and still call it a memoir, but Oprah wasn't having any of that, either from Frey or his publisher, Nan Talese, who appeared on the show as well.

The multitude of commentators didn't really add a lot to the show, although it was funny hearing Maureen Down say that Oprah should kick Frey's "bony, lying, non-fiction butt out of the kingdom of Oprah".

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if this really does change anything in the publishing world and, if so, if it will only be a temporary reaction or a long-term one. As critics turn their attention to other memoirs like Oprah's newest Book Club choice, Night by Elie Wiesel, and the best-selling Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, will more and more authors include notes in their books regarding the accuracy of the contents?

If Oprah has her way, and she usually does, the answer seems to be "yes."

A Million More Copies of A Million Little Pieces

Since this has been blogged about by everyone over and over, I'm not going to get into the whole fiction/non-fiction debate. I've read the book, I understand the anger and frustration. But, having written memoir-esque short stories, I understand the manipulation of time and space that's sometimes needed to creat a coherent story. Most non-fiction involves some form of this. Having said that, James Frey went way beyond bare-bones manipulation (OK, so apparently I am getting into it) and deserves the negative attention he's receiving.

BUT, my original point of this post has a different angle. I like to check the New York Times best-selling books every Monday (I also always check Billboard's music charts and box-office numbers...maybe this list obsession is a guy thing, like in High Fidelity?). I noticed that for the week ending January 7th, Frey's A Million Little Pieces was still at the top of the non-fiction paperback list, and his follow-up, My Friend Leonard, had inexplicably jumped from the bottom of the Top Ten to No. 1 on the non-fiction hardcover list. Even weirder was how the hardcover edition of AMLP resurfaced on the same list at No. 15. Why would people start shelling out more money for the hardcover now, months after Oprah chose it for her Book Club, when the paperback was available? The hardcover didn't make an appearance even when Oprah originally chose it, so why now?

Before I could figure out the answer, the now-famous Smoking Gun report came out on January 8th. As usual, I checked the best-seller lists this week, this time ending January 14th, which takes into account sales after the report made headlines nationwide.


Lo and behold, not only is the paperback AMLP still No. 1 on its chart, but the hardcover has only fallen three spots to No. 18 and MFL only fell to No. 3 on their chart.

I didn't expect sales to plummet down to zero, especially after Oprah called in during Frey's interview with Larry King on January 11th and continued endorsing the book, but why are so many people still paying more for the hardcover?

I know some people might hear about all this controversy and think, "Hmm, this book is getting a lot of attention. Maybe I should read it so I know what this is all about."

Or,

"Hmm, this guy is getting all this negative press and Oprah still supports him. Oprah must really like this book a lot. Maybe I should find out why she insists on supporting him so wholeheartedly."

Or,

"I'm an addict (or recovering addict) and I need all the help I can get. Oprah and James and James' mom all say this could help me, so why not? Every little bit helps, right?"

The first reason? Fine. Choosing to inform yourself by reading the book that's causing so much heated debate makes sense. It's better than mouthing off on the topic without knowing what's really being talked about.


The second reason? Fine...I guess. I admit, I read this book after I decided that maybe I should read one of her Book Club selections to see what they were like (not counting the classics that I had already read before she chose them). But the fact that this book's credibility has been ripped to shreds should maybe tell you something that others who read it beforehand couldn't know. And of course Oprah still endorsed it - she can't admit that she was duped and therefore convinced her millions of fans to spend money and time on a fraud. She eclipsed responsibility (and helped Frey eclipse it, too) by blaming the publishers for blurring the lines of novel and memoir.

The third reason? That's when it starts to become dangerous. As writers at Slate, Huffington Post and others have explained, this book might hurt addicts more than help them. It would be hard to criticize a book for offering addicts hope, yet Frey's approach to recovery involves criticizing the approach of AA and other programs. If his approach is based on lies, how could he expect to inspire confidence and hope in his readers? If he lied about what brought him to attempt recovery in the first place, why should anyone believe anything else he says?

There might be other reasons that I haven't thought of (Readers? Any guesses?). But none of this explains why people are not only still buying his books in droves, but still buying tons of the hardcover edition.

Even as I write this, the paperback is still No. 2 on today's Amazon.com best-seller list (second only to Oprah's new Book Club choice, Night by Elie Wiesel), but the hardcover edition has actually jumped from No. 297 yesterday to No. 261.

Since AMLP's gravitas has been deflated, maybe people feel ashamed to buy the book yet still want to read it, so they choose to pay more for the hardcover so they can take the cover off and read it discreetly? Maybe the mere fact that it's a hardcover lends the book a more academic, intellectual, serious quality (and, therefore, less deserving of shame)? But that doesn't make sense, because if people were ashamed to buy this book now, the paperback wouldn't still be flying off the shelves.

Maybe people just want something heavy to hit Frey in the face with.

Basically, I just don't get it. So help me out. Readers?