Whatever Oprah wants....

she gets.

Even though it's been over a year since the whole James Frey and Oprah feud began, it still bothers me.

Interestingly enough, some Oprah-business happened here in the great state of Texas. This past weekend the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest took place in Grapevine, Texas. In attendance were Joyce Carol Oates and Nan Talese of Doubleday Publishing. Doubleday publishes the works of many well-known authors, including James Frey. During the conference, Talese commented on the situation that occured with Frey and Oprah, saying that Ms. Winfrey ambushed the author when inviting him on her show for the second time. The show was originally going to be about telling the truth and would include a panel of guests, but before the show began Talese and Frey learned that it would be "The James Frey Controversy."

Now we can't go assuming that Oprah ambushed him because we haven't heard her side of the story. But, frankly, who cares? Not me! Even if she is innocent of ambushing Frey, her treatment of him was less than god-like, and in this country we treat her as if she were a god.

I'm not excusing what Frey did, but I think we're all guilty of "publishing" lies. It could be at work when telling a funny story to co-workers. While the anecdote you're telling may have happened to a friend, you cast your self as the main character. Think about it. You probably just did that before reading this. It's the same with writing. Let's face it, a memoir of your life, even if you are an addict, may not be that exciting. Joyce Carol Oates even says, "the tradition of personal memoir has always been highly 'fictionalized' — colored with an individual's own 'emotional truth' "

Oprah could've approached the whole situation differently. She needs compassion. She preaches it, but she rarely practices it. Memoirs help readers to deal with problems. It helps us to know that someone else may be in our situation or that maybe our situation isn't that bad after all. If we keep fact-checking, we may not have writers willing to reveal their struggles to society. In fact, Oates writes fiction for that reason. "She says that she has never read Frey's book and that she chooses to write fiction because memoirs today 'strain credulity.'"

I wouldn't be a good teacher if I didn't cite my sources. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1648140,00.html?cnn=yes

Keep Literature Alive!