Another Memoir Turns Out to Be Fiction
by Staff
Less than a week after Belgian author Misha Defonseca admitted to fabricating her best-selling Holocaust memoir, Margaret B. Jones revealed yesterday that her memoir, Love and Consequences, published last week by Riverhead Books, is a fake. The publisher is recalling the book—approximately nineteen thousand copies were printed—and has canceled the author's publicity tour, which was scheduled to start next Monday.
Belgian Author Admits Holocaust Memoir Is Fiction
by Staff
Belgian author Misha Defonseca admitted last Thursday to fabricating her Holocaust memoir, which became a best-seller in Europe. Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years (Mount Ivy Press, 1997), tells the story of a young girl who travels nineteen hundred miles across war-torn Europe looking for her parents after they were taken away by the Nazis, lives with a pack of protective wolves, kills a Nazi soldier, and is detained in the Warsaw ghetto. The book was translated into eighteen languages and made into a film in France.
James Frey Lawsuit Settled: Judge Orders 1,729 Refunds
by Staff
On Friday, a federal court judge in New York City approved a settlement in the lawsuit brought against Random House by 1,729 readers who bought James Frey's controversial memoir A Million Little Pieces. Those readers, all of whom bought the book before January 26, 2006, the day the author and his publisher acknowledged that parts of the book are fictional, will receive a refund. The settlement will cost Random House $27,348 in refunds as well as over $1 million in legal expenses. The settlement also calls for the publisher to donate a total of $180,000 to the American Red Cross, the Hazeldon addiction treatment center, and First Book.
More Fiction From James Frey: HarperCollins to Publish Novel
by Staff
Less than two years after James Frey admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he had fabricated sections of his memoir A Million Little Pieces, the infamous author is set to publish again. HarperCollins announced yesterday that it had acquired Frey's third book, a novel titled Bright Shiny Morning, and plans to publish it next summer.
Home » Magazine » Daily News » Publisher Drops James Frey
Publisher Drops James Frey
Lisa Kussell, a representative of writer James Frey, recently announced that Riverhead Books has canceled the author’s two-book contract. Riverhead, the imprint of Penguin Books that released Frey’s second memoir, My Friend Leonard, in June 2005, has declined to comment.
Frey’s A Million Little Pieces (Nan A. Talese, 2003), a memoir of drug and alcohol abuse and rehabilitation, was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her book club in September 2005. In January the Smoking Gun Web site published a report revealing that many of the facts in A Million Little Pieces could not be verified, initiating a firestorm of criticism of both Frey and the publishing industry.
After a second appearance on Winfrey’s television show in January in which Frey admitted to many of the accusations made by the Smoking Gun, the Los Angeles Times reported that Warner Bros. was reconsidering plans to make a movie of A Million Little Pieces, and Frey was dropped by his literary agent Kassie Evashevski of Brillstein-Grey.
Despite the controversy, the paperback edition of A Million Little Pieces (Anchor, 2005) has sold more than three million copies and remains in the number two position on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.
