James Frey - live webchat - 11th March, 2009

James Christopher Frey is an American writer. His first book, the memoir, A Million Little Pieces, was published by John Murray in 2003. Its follow-up, My Friend Leonard (also a memoir) was published by in 2005. Both books became New York Times number one bestsellers. In late 2005 and early 2006, investigators discovered that elements of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, had been fabricated. It was a great book in any case, so everybody's happy. Frey, along with his family, currently resides in New York City. His latest book is Bright Shiny Morning .

About Bright Shiny Morning:

This is a bold and dazzling new story from the controversial creator of A Million Little Pieces. Welcome to LA. City of contradictions. It is home to movie stars and down-and-outs. Palm-lined beaches and gridlock. Shopping sprees and gun sprees. Bright Shiny Morning takes a wild ride through the ultimate metropolis, where glittering excess rubs shoulders with seedy depravity. Frey's trademark filmic snapshots zoom in on the parallel lives of diverse characters, bringing their egos and ideals, hopes and despairs, anxieties and absurdities vividly to life. Some suffer, like the otherworldly wino who tries to save a spoilt teenage runaway. Others gain, like the canny talent agent who turns sexual harassment to blackmailing advantage. Some are loaded, or grounded, and have luck on their side. Others, like the countless actresses-turned-hookers, or schoolboys-turned-gangsters, are doomed.

Read more about James on his author page

Buy the book

Comments

[Gareth Buchaillard-Davies]

Hi James, which was better - having a best-selling memoir or making Oprah Winfrey look a little silly?

[Iain Martin]

Hi James: I loved Bright, Shiny Morning, I found it the amongst the most absorbing and entertaining of novels from 2008. I liked the attempt to write "the L.A. novel", and wondered which novels had inspired you by particularly successfully evoking a specific place?

[Jo James]

Hi James. Despite the danger of sounding like a sycophantic stalker, I want to state right away that I'm a huge fan of your books. I read MLP, MFL and BSM last year, and all three have stayed with me ever since. I love the fact that you put the statement at the beginning of BSM saying that NOTHING in the book should be regarded as true, but how many of the 'facts' did you make up? And did you have fun making up any in particular?

Thanks
Jo

[Adele Winston]

I loved Bright Shiny Morning; what are you doing next, please?

[Jo James]

James did you identify with any of the characters in Bright Shiny Morning in particular, or can you recognise bits of yourself in lots of them?

[Jo James]

Given that you're now a hugely successful author, what are you working on next, and what do you hope to achieve with it?

[Georgina Tranter]

Hi James

Looks like Jo beat me to it, but I found the 'facts' about LA in "Bright Shiny Morning" as interesting, if not more so, than the characters themselves. Do you consider LA to have been a character of the book, and as Jo asks, which facts were true?

[Karen]

Have read Bright Shiny Morning but I'm afraid I was not one of those who loved it. One of my big dislikes about it had to be the lists. I have noted that some readers loved them. As the author what did you intend the reader to get from the lists that interspersed your stories? I obviously did not get the point of them and confess to skipping most of them towards the end - sorry! - but I would be interested to know what you intended me to get out of them.

[Anne Whitcombe]

Hi James,
I loved 'Bright Shiny Morning', and especially liked the way you interspersed your huge lists of 'facts' with the various 'plots'. I found myself identifying with the city as the main character, and the characters as background, and I wonder if you intended this in any way?

[Greg Eden]

Hi, James

If a movie was ever made of MLP who would you like to see in the lead role? ie playing you? I definitely have Joe Pesci down to play Leonard, do you think that would work?

[Kelly Dixon]

Allo James -
Hope you're well. Have read your books and was lucky enough to get a proof advanced copy of Bright Shiny Morning early last year - WOW! Thought the descriptions were amazing and plot genius. Will the next book be another fiction or a autobiog?... And when???

[Simon Burke]

Hi James

I remember reading somewhere that when asked about Bright Shiny Morning when it was originally published you said that your intention was to do something quite radical with the form of the novel and also that it was very much your love letter to LA - for better or for worse.

Having had to time to reflect, do you still feel these statements are valid?

[Ben Hatch]

Love all your books, can't wait for more, I always recommend them to anyone who will listen ! Any plans to make any of them plays or film work ? Also does music effect you when you write and what were you listening to whilst writing MFL. Thanks.

[David Kohn]

The writing style you employed in MLP was different to pretty much anything I'd ever read. It also reads like it is totally natural. Is this the case, and the style simply reflects how it came out, or was it something you had to work hard to achieve?

[Lynsay Lambert]

Hi James

I'm very happy that you're doing this chat - i'm a massive fan, and was very pleased when we got BSM as one of the book club books last year!

do you think you'll ever write a conclusion to the characters stories from BSM, or do you prefer leaving it open to readers' interpretation?

and did you ever think MLP would stir up the controversy that it did? With the benefit of hindsight, would you change anything about how the book was written, for example, making it more clear that it wasnt completely non-fiction?

[James Frey]

Gareth: bestselling memoir or making Oprah look silly?

Definitely bestselling memoir, though I don't really think of it as that. It's just a book, a story. What the publisher sticks on the side is irrelevant. And I don't really care what anyone in the media, including Oprah, thinks of me. I want to move readers, entertain them, make them thibk and read live differently in some way.

[James Frey]

Iain: which books inspired me to write BSM.

I wanted to write about LA in the way Dickens wrote about London, Hugo did Paris, Tolstoy did Moscow, Dos Passos did all the US, Studs Terkel did Chicago, Tom Wolfe did New York. Make the city a central character, if not the central character. Construct the stories in a way that they could have only happened in LA, right now.

[James Frey]

Jo: glad you liked the way I made stuff up. Sort of my trademark now.

Writing all of BSM was fun. There was no pressure, no expectations. As I contructed the historical, statistical and demographic sections of the book, when I couldn't find something I liked, or made sense, or thought was cool, I just made things up. It was funny to do, and made me chuckle. Not just because I was clearly inventing supposed facts, but because I knew it would enrage people back in America who expect me to be penitent and apologetic. Nothing ever wrong with taking the piss out of self-righteous Americans.

[James Frey]

Adele: what am I doing next?

I'm in the middle of writing a new book. Is about the Messiah, my idea of what it would be like if the Messiah were walking the streets of New York right now; what would he be like, what would he believe, who would he associate with, what would he think of the world we live in, what would he have to say about it. Right now it's called The Final Testament of the Holy Bible. We'll see if anyone lets me publish it with that title.

[James Frey]

Jo: who do I identify with in BSM.

Almost everyone in the book.I feel like I sort of have to to be able to write about them. I don't really have favorite characters in it, though I do have sections that make me laugh. The one I think is funniest, aside from invented facts and statistics, is when Amberton is hanging around the Russian. The Russian is a cold-blooded killer who just wants to be in movies, and get dental insurance for his mother. Only in LA.

[Andy]

Hi James. As someone who has been through, to say the least, a self-destructive period, do you think alcohol has a place in modern society?

[James Frey]

Georgina: LA is definitely the central character. The book is about the city more than any one specific story or character in it. The made up facts and statistics are spread through the entire thing. I had to make a list for the American publisher of all of the made-up stuff. The one that makes me laugh the most is about the first car in LA being crashed and the driver dying. The driver's name is the name of a friend of mine who lives in Washington DC and is a terrible driver. Did it just to make fun of him. There are tons of other little nuggets like that in the whole book.

[James Frey]

Karen: the lists. Most of them were just information about the city. They provide a way to know it better, and differently. Some of them were written to make specific points. One I know I didn't expect anyone to read was the list of wounded soldiers who live in an LA veterans hospital. It was deliberately long and awful, the point being that the USA sends young men out to fight stupid wars. Many of them get wounded and come home and are ruined and forgotten. We need to face that fact, even though it's hard and terrible. The list was supposed to overwhelm you, and force to think about these men, and then turn away from them the way the country does.

[James Frey]

Anne: thanks for the kind words. I did hope to do that to readers, and I'm happy it worked with you. Thanks for reading the book and for the support.

[James Frey]

Greg: a movie of AMLP.

I don't know what's happening with the movie. Warner Brothers owns the rights and I don't think they have any plans for it right now. I sort of hope they never make it. Would rather have it continue to live as a book.