Oprah Picking Up The Final "Pieces" With Frey

Saw Oprah's  final interview with James Frey (author of the 'fictionalized' memoir "A Million Little Pieces) the other day-- it was fascinating piece of closure for both the controversial author and the contrite "Empress of Empathy" (as Maureen Dowd once dubbed her).  It was clear from the outset that Oprah regretted the manner in which she ambushed Frey and his editor (Nan Talese) on her 2006 show-- the one in which she confronted the author about his fake memoir (although she specifically said she wasn't sorry for what she said).  After some skillful questioning, Winfrey got Frey to open more than he has done previously, about why exactly he did what he did and when he made the fateful decision to lie to the public:

When I look at a Picasso self portrait-- let's say you look at a cubist self portrait that Picasso has made, it doesn't  actually look anything like Picasso.  Or if it does, it does in ways that might only make sense to him.

So when I was writing the book, I was thinking about it like that-- and I was thinking about it in the ways writers I admired-- and who mean something to me-- wrote.  Writers like Celine, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac.  These were writers who wrote books about their own lives in some way but they tried to make art out of what they had lived.  And I don't think they were concerned about 'is this fact or is this not?  Is this fiction or non fiction?'  They were just trying to tell a story in the best they could and in a way that made sense to them.

And when I was writing "A Million Pieces", that's what I was trying  to do.  When we originally shopped the book, we shopped it as  a novel and nobody wanted to publish it as a novel.  And at a certain point, I got the opportunity to publish it as a memoir.   Whatever conversations were had, or whatever advice I was given or whatever i was told . . . at this point I don't think is even relevant--  because  there came a day when the decision was made-- is it a memoir. . .  do you want to publish as a memoir or not? . . .  and I said "yes".  And then there came a lot of days where it was "it's time for you to go and promote it" . . . and I went out and I said it was a memoir.

When pressed for further details on the exact  time when he made the decision to say it was a memoir when he knew it wasn't, he fell back on a self-serving re-hashing of his youth:

I started trying to be  a writer when i was 22.  You know-- growing, up I didn't ever really know what I was going to be-- I was just kind of  a troubled kid.  I certainly knew i was never going to be a doctor or a lawyer or work in a bank.

He eventually concluded with a vague statement of quasi-accountability:

I wrote a book and I had a chance to publish it.  it wasn't necessarily how I imagined it but I wanted it published; I wanted it out in the world, and I said "yes".

It seems clear to me that he is covering up for his editor Nan Talese or others at his publisher, who clearly had a role in (knowingly, falsely) selling his book as a memoir.  In the end however, he did take full personal responsibility for the debacle, commenting on his 2006 decision to come on Oprah's show to take his punishment:

I knew that what happened was my fault-- I created that mess, I created that situation and that if I had to come bear the responsibility of what I had done, that I should do it.