In a move that is unprecedented in publishing, author James Frey and his publishers at Random House have agreed to refund the price of Frey’s memoir “A Million Little Pieces” to readers who felt defrauded by the book.
Frey’s book became a megaseller last fall after Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club, but the website The Smoking Gun revealed in January that the memoir contained numerous fabrications. The fallout was predictable. Winfrey at first defended Frey, but as the evidence mounted, she changed course and berated the author on national television. Despite all this, “A Million Little Pieces” remained on best-seller lists for months.
The agreement still requires court approval and could take months to finalize.
In light of the brouhaha, we’ve asked several of our reviewers what books they would like refunds for and why.
We’d also like to hear from you. For which books would you like a refund? Why? Keep your answers short and pithy, and e-mail them to twalker@denverpost.com.
Uncompelled by “Code” |In late winter of 2003, I received a galley of a new thriller coming out in March. It had a religious theme and was based on secret societies and ancient puzzles and riddles – even murder.
I thought the story was fine, but not clever or compelling. The writing was often turgid with long passages of drivel. I decided not to review the book. What could I tell readers about a book that was destined for remainder tables before the summer solstice? This one was going nowhere.
It’s been more than three years and “The Da Vinci Code,” by Dan Brown, has sold tens of millions of copies, stayed on bestseller lists forever and fomented a cottage industry of religious- thriller copycats. My bad. (But I’d still want my money back.) – Tom Walker
A sharp knife spatters all|It’s good for a critic to get egg on his face every so often, and it’s happened to me more than once over 30 years of reviewing. One particularly dramatic instance occurred at the beginning of my career when I was more convinced of my opinions than I am now. I was assigned to review a first novel by a young writer who taught at a local prep school and had some contacts at the newspaper where I worked.
I read the book and wrote a scathing review, criticizing the author for pretentiously mimicking Henry James and some experimental writers in vogue at the time. I said that while we often looked for talent in first novels rather than achievement, it would be difficult to find either in this book. Well, the author was Peter Straub, and while I may have been right in my judgment of “Marriages” (the novel), I was somehow less than accurate in my assessment of his chances of future success.
In addition, there are three recent books for which I’d like a refund: “Everyman,” by Philip Roth; “Terrorist,” by John Updike; and “Until I Find You,” by John Irving. In each case, I looked forward to the book by a writer I’d previously read and admired and was disappointed, for different reasons, by each author. Roth seems to be doing this from memory and his memory needs work; Updike has no business straying from the suburbs; and Irving (to paraphrase an old editor of mine) tells us more about tattoos than most of us want to know. – David Milofsky
Don’t give a celeb a pen |Generally, a celebrity’s name on a book guarantees that what’s inside is predictable and dumb. Are you listening, Jamie Lee Curtis, Paul McCartney, John Lithgow, Dr. Laura, Madonna and the rest of you pseudo-
authors who ought to be content with the income from your performing careers?
Much as I enjoy “The Sound of Music” (both original and sing-along versions), I neither understand nor can quite forgive Julie Andrews for inflicting “Dumpy Saves Christmas” on an unsuspecting world.
More than enough insipid Christmas books and TV specials litter this world. Earth does not need a tale about a plucky talking dump truck that steps in to carry Santa on his rounds. The narrative – “Best of all, the tree itself, twinkling from head to toe” – exceeds the sentimental drivel expected by people unfamiliar with well-written children’s books.
Perhaps Dame Edna Everage – one celebrity quite capable of producing a savagely memorable children’s book – could wring some camp value with a stage reading of “Dumpy Saves Christmas.” Otherwise, it’s more productive to spend the $15.99 urging Hyperion Press and other celebrity-dazzled publishing houses to get a grip. – Claire Martin
Do your own (good) work|Refunds would be nice on books by all nonfiction authors who are plagiarists, especially the super-hyped ones like the late Stephen Ambrose; on mystery fiction by writers who inexplicably (through no fault of their own) become blockbuster bestsellers despite mediocre plotting and clichéd prose (think John Grisham, although he’s apparently a generous human being with his wealth); and on rants masquerading as books by shock jocks, such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly, who twist the truth when they open their mouths or switch on their word processing software. – Steve Weinberg
Bloodsucking bore |I’d like a refund for the time I’ve spent trying to read Laurell Hamilton’s Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novels. They’re best sellers and get some good reviews, but I can never follow them to a point where anything interesting happens.
The proof of purchase for “A Million Little Pieces” is page 163. Applying the 163 Test to “Danse Macabre,” the latest Anita Blake adventure, she spends the whole page debating how many males (human or vampire) will be in her bed that night. It takes several more pages to decide, by which point I’ve lost my interest for the night. – Fred Cleaver
Political pushovers |”The 9/11 Commission Report” – It was supposed to tell us everything, to hold the negligent accountable and to pave the way for future reforms. But commission chairmen Thomas H. Kean and Lee K. Hamilton have been saying lately that few, if any, of the recommendations they made in “The 9/11 Commission Report” have been followed. Why not reproduce facsimiles of all the president’s daily briefings, so all the country can see what was ignored? Why not tell us, in the report, rather than their recent inside story of the report (“Without Precedent”), how hard the administration fought the writing every step of the way?
“I Am Charlotte Simmons,” by Tom Wolfe – Some writers are inseparable from their hype, and in the past decade Wolfe has become one such writer. His latest novel, a novelized exposé of the girls-gone-wild culture of today’s university life, was certainly eye-popping. But these were hardly revelations. One merely had to turn on any reality TV show – let alone ESPN – to learn that youth culture, NCAA Division I style, won’t be spawning a Woodstock any time soon.
“Bush at War,” by Bob Woodward – How is the man who wrote this dewy-eyed portrait of a president charging into battle – on false pretenses, we now know, with no exit strategy – the same reporter who, alongside Carl Bernstein, took down the most corrupt American president in the history of the republic? There is a new Woodward title coming this fall, and let’s hope he knows this time around his job is not to convey talking points, but to question them. – John Freeman
Truly, fiercely bad|One of the worst books that I have read in the seven years I have been writing book reviews and interviewing writers was the novel “Fierce People,” by Dirk Wittenborn, which came out in 2002. A coming-of-age novel by one of the original writers for “Saturday Night Live,” it is a rip-off of “Brideshead Revisited” set in New Jersey. Filled with wooden characters, stereotypical rich boys and girls, and a poor-boy narrator wowed by wealth, the book mostly consists of clichés strung together. I read ’til my eyes were bloody.
What was intriguing, however, about “Fierce People” was the “who’s who” of New York pop literatis who gushed about the book – Dominick Dunne, Candace Bushnell, Jay McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis wrote unbelievable things, comparing Wittenborn to Salinger and Dickens. Never believe blurbs. Friends should not let writer friends blurb bad books. – Dylan Foley
Bad in a big package |It was hard not to believe Rick Moody was hit below the belt when character-assassin-passing-as-literary critic Dale Peck wrote “Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation.” So when I picked up Moody’s behemoth novel, “The Diviners,” to review, I really wanted to like it. What I found was a work overblown and leaden, its flashes of brilliance separated by hundreds of pages of dross. I wanted to hurl the book at the wall when I was finished. I didn’t – at more than 500 pages, it was heavy enough to leave a big dent. I wouldn’t call Rick Moody the worst writer of his generation; that honor might belong to Dale Peck. But I won’t be spending any more time with him.
A close second to “The Diviners” was the overhyped and poorly executed “The Wind Done Gone,” by Alice Randall. I was waiting for a good parody of “Gone With the Wind.” I’m still waiting. Randall took a lot of cheap and easy shots, but she never exploded the master-slave myths perpetuated by her. Luckily, “The Wind Done Gone” was a thin volume – it didn’t leave a mark on the wall. – Robin Vidimos
A bridge claims toll |The most overhyped book I ever read was “The Bridges of Madison County,” by Robert James Waller. Everyone was talking about it, including my sister, whose recommendations generally are infallible, so I read it. How could readers buy into this story of an Iowa farm woman who never got over her two-day barnyard tryst with a photographer? He had a life, but she moped around for the rest of hers, communing with the guy’s cameras once a year. I’d like my money back on this one.
Oh wait. I borrowed it from the library. I wish I’d never bothered with “The Bridges of Madison County,” but of course, I wish I’d written it. – Sandra Dallas
Lost in translation |When the media and best-seller lists hyped Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose-Driven Life,” I should have known better than to be sucked in. But I didn’t. I thought this book would do wonders for my spiritual life.
So when our church decided to use Warren’s book for a Lenten small group study, I jumped in and asked to lead the group. Big mistake. After reading two or three pages, I was taken aback by the book’s maudlin tone. Then I checked the appendix and saw that Warren uses 20 or so different translations of the Bible.
That was OK until I realized that he’d fused the translations together to arrive at verses that pushed his own agenda, which isn’t necessarily Scripture’s agenda. When Warren doesn’t invent hybrid translations of the Bible, he misquotes and paraphrases so loosely as to be guilty of fabrication.
Soon, I wanted out. But as the group’s leader, I was stuck. So I told the others that Warren probably had his heart in the right place – although his translations were far afield. – Diane Scharper
