Memories are Made of This
The JT Leroy story is pushing the James Frey story the way the breeze pushes toy sailboats on what used to be golden pond. Frey’s revelations or rather The Smoking Gun’s tell a more twisted tale than even the bizarre JT Leroy mishmash that frankly confuses the hell out of me. Part of my confusion is predicated on my inability to devote brain time to solving puzzles unless they are life threatening or occurring in real time with people who drink Big Gulps by candlelight. Okay, I might do that.
Let’s skip JT Leroy and focus on James Frey. The stakes are higher in the non-fiction moment for the confessional inspirational memoir now tainted by fabrication, prevarication, ordination from Oprah, massive sums of money, but at the heart of it all is this: we want to believe redemption stories. We want those stories to be true. In the background is the commercial aspect; this stuff sells, this stuff gets the book on Oprah and lights the fuse for mega bestseller. According to TSG, Frey’s manuscript was shopped as a novel, but seventeen publishers said no. Why, if it’s the same story? What does that tell us about the marketplace? Ask any literary agent about selling fiction. They can’t or won’t or find it too difficult to sell fiction; the leap to memoir is one of those evil twin ideas that occur to people when the Con Ed bill exceeds their net worth or when, like Ophelia ‘neath the window, they spend their time peeking into Desolation Row.
Everyone who writes and tries to sell fiction understands in a visceral way how random the walk is for unknowns. Cheesy memoirs have been at the end of the class for some time, devouring one another in a race for more shock value, more drugs, more sex, more degradation. The water level is rising and the Good Ship Lolly Pop won’t be rescued this time by the USS Oprah. It’s not nice to fool with a force of nature.