Fiction is stranger than truth

Dallas Morning News: Seems no one is really raising much of a stink about this week's revelations that James Frey fabricated key details of his best-selling memoir, "A Million Little Pieces." As an Oprah Book Club pick, the memoir -- an alcoholic and drug addict's journey to redemption -- was propelled to the top of best-seller lists, where it remains.
Winfrey came to the author's defense, calling the brouhaha "much ado about nothing." Publisher Doubleday also stood by Frey, saying his book was based on the author's recollections. Shame on both of you.
Do we as a society place such a low value on truth that we so easily forgive people like Frey who peddle fiction as fact? When New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was caught plagiarizing and fabricating a story about a soldier missing in Iraq, the media stoned his career to death. Yet Winfrey defended Frey, saying that the book gave drug addicts a reason to hold on, even if some details were in question.
Readers should hold on all right -- hold on to their money.
A marketing ploy?
Frey says he's been sober for 13 years, quite a victory over drug addiction and alcoholism. So why would he feel compelled to make things up? Did he think his real recollections were not gritty enough to sell millions of copies?
One thing's for sure -- the lies have seriously undercut his message of hope. When Rigoberta Menchu exaggerated her own account in her memoirs released in the early 1980s, she discredited her fight for the rights of Guatemalan Indians, who did suffer horrific repression, gruesome poverty and cruel racism. Her distortions and lies won her some enemies and no sympathy for the plight of her people.
In America, however, there seems to be no such thing as bad publicity. But perhaps there's hope after all. Blair, after being unmasked, tried to redeem himself with a memoir. It has sold only about 2,000 copies.