Fake-tough, fake-literary
is back in the fame business, according to New York magazine, which
catches up with the disgraced memoirist
in his new career of art-commerce starfucking (Damien Hirst! Terry Richardson!) and running a Young Adult Fiction/Movie-Optioning sweatshop. Good for him! Everybody’s got to eat, and to hang “a stunning collection of modern art” on the walls, maybe, right?
(Disclosure-ish something-or-other: James Frey’s former book editor was one of my book editors.)
Anyway, the New York article is a fine exploration of the principle that the number-one way to make it in this life is to be as full of shit as possible. And it lets the world know that even though James Frey’s main calling nowadays is to get young writers to sign disadvantageous contracts to crank out books that amount to the Twilight series (ctrl-F “vampire,” replace-all w/ “alien”), he has not lost his gift for telling stories about himself that are so remarkable one almost doubts they could be true. This one, for instance:
Frey said [Norman] Mailer even told him, right before he died, “You’re the next one of us.”
Can you picture it? Sure you can! It’s just like Yoda and Luke Skywalker.
Famous masculine writer now are you, James. Strong is the Force in this one.
Put some green makeup on wrinkly little Mailer and it’s totally real. Real enough, anyway.
