pen ink river

I just finished reading most of The Smoking Gun's six-page indictment of James Frey's alleged memoir, A Million Little Pieces. I haven't read the book; it isn't a memoir that would ever appeal to me. But what is clear from TSG's research that had not been fully explored in the few mainstream media news articles about the controversy around the book is that Frey wanted to write fiction and initially did. Fiction doesn't get published these days but memoir does. So, when his fiction was passed up he was miraculously able to tell his real-life amazing recovery-from-addiction story. And lo and behold, Oprah and many others fell for it. America loves those quick fixes for what is broken. And now Frey sits at the top of the heap, fat, happy, and rich.

There is much that's troubling to me about this story and the brouhaha it has engendered. This feels like yet another major example of lying—under the guise of creative license—being tolerated if not sanctioned in our American culture. More and more these days, it seems convenient to ignore the ethical dimensions of a falsehood when your untruths make you—and others in the publishing gravy train—piles of money, our obvious Mammon.

More disturbing to me, as someone who writes, is the feeding frenzy around memoir as a writing genre. I think somehow it is tied into the proliferation of writing programs nationwide, too. My hunch is that many enrollees aren't necessarily true writers, people dedicated to the art, the craft, the life. I think they are those who feel they have a story to tell and why not tell it just like James Frey did, why not join the party and be the next the memoir du jour. All you have to do is tell your story, honestly or not. Storytelling, that's what I think people crave. Not writing as hard work, let alone art.

There simply can't be this many true writers. I increasingly believe writing is a calling, a talent, a gift resident in a combination of DNA and luck. Like the other arts, it requires energy, dedication, training, apprenticeship, constant practice, endless humility and revision. Only because many of us know how to write (hold a pen, touchtype a keyboard) for other tasks in our lives does writing even seem like something anyone can do. This might also explain the exponential growth of all these low-res writing programs. Otherwise, why wouldn't there be the same number of low-res graduate programs for painting or sculpture or musical composition?

So the equation goes like this. Anyone can write. Everyone has a story to tell. James Frey did it and he made a lot of money so I can, too. More fuel to the dumbing-down-of-culture fire. Discouraging to those of us trying to actually do writing-as-art.