I just finished reading your book today and the brutal truth behind it, especially the list of what happens to all of those in the clinic left me in ore. I loved your honesty that filled the pages and as the book went on I felt as if I knew you because your amazing ability to write manages to captivate the reader and draw them in and take them along your journey. Lily sounds like a beautiful person I think why I loved her so much is that she reminded me of my cousin who beyond the service of her ruins in life is such an amazing person.Your relationship together you could feel was filled with more love then many people are ever able to experience in their lives, married or not!Thank you for giving me the experience of delving a little into you journey.

She has never seen the hundreds of lost souls in an alcohol, drug, or other addiction rehabilitation facility who have embraced your book as their path to recovery. Many of these people are angry with God and feel betrayed by Him. These addicts have experienced abuse that is unimaginable. They have experienced loss that is impossible to truly comprehend. Instead of suicide, they have chosen to survive using whatever means of escape possible including, drugs, alcohol, sex, food, gambling. Escape allows these people to tolerate their horrid realities. However, this form of survival only turns their already turbulent lives into chaos and a worse hell on earth.

To over come addiction, people are taught to embrace and live according to a 12-step based recovery method – AA, NA, CA, GA, and OEA. They are told that “turning their lives and will over to a ‘higher-power’ of their understanding” will rid them of their addiction. That higher power is often referred to as “God” – the one these people have seemingly been let down by and rage against. Therefore, in order to get better, an addict or alcoholic must turn their life over to their nemesis – God.

James Frey, your book provides an alternate path to freedom from addiction and a window into how to live life on life’s terms. It saved my life and the life of my mother and brother.

I believe your book has nothing to do with whether certain events in the book really happened or were made up. Having said that, all of the events and details in his book are probably true. The details are a compilation of many addicts’ and alcoholics’ stories. For this reason, any person suffering from the disease of addiction easily relates to the characters and events in the book. They see themselves in your stories and come to believe that there is another way out – a way that does not involve the most touted recipe of salvation from addiction, a 12-step “God” based recovery.

Oprah Winfrey has never walked in the shoes of a person who has completely lost themselves to drugs and alcohol. She has no right to refer to your book as fiction. A Million Little Pieces is the most accurate portrayal of addiction ever written. If Oprah was just a little less arrogant, and a whole lot less ignorant on the topic of addiction and recovery, she might have realized the genius on every page of a “Million Little Pieces”. A million totally true pieces, merged together to create one giant truth.

I was sitting up last night with my sick mum (she’s 92) and wound up watching the two-parter Oprah interview of you which I’d DVRed. Surprisingly (for me), it turned out to be one of the best television programs I have seen in years.

You were GREAT. I realize that you were saying as best you could what you think / believe / guess / imagine and that all of that is much more complicated than the words that fell from your tongue. Your words and you take on many topics were good to hear. But I also want you to know how much I admired your ability to manage the social politics and psychological and spiritual elements of that situation. I don’t know if you know that you’re good at that stuff. But you really are.

I didn’t see your first show with Oprah. Nor have I read any of your books. However, I’ve certainly read about YOU and your big fat early sin of success. What I’d read was nothing like the person I met last night. You really rocked, James. Extraordinarily so.

I now plan to read your work and follow your publishing company’s shenanigans. I found your collaborative creative model fascinating. Very different though. Wouldn’t have thought of it myself. But upon hearing of it it seems incredibly obvious. Good luck to you all.

Very best,

Ann

He mis-labeled his written work as a different genre then what it was. He did not plagiarize.

What exactly is so scandalous … and why is it becuase Oprah Winfrey says so, we must all feel Frey is a terrible person and artist.

He is a gifted writer and made a small mistake in the literary world.

I would focus more on his talent and entertainment to readers than the fact that he called his novel a memoir.

If i’m totally off-base and have this whole thing wrong, please let me know!

Thanks!!

Judy