Her 15 percent's worth

Finally, we hear from James Frey's agent. In an exclusive interview with Publishers Weekly, Kassie Evashevski reveals she's dropped faux-memoirist Frey as a client. She also wonders now if what we need is a "nonfiction memoir," and adds:

"One can fact-check facts, but how do you fact-check memory and perception? I'm less clear on whether or not I think publishers have a responsibility to carefully check nonfiction works of a journalistic nature.Ultimately, I feel an author should be responsible for his or her own work, but I leave that to the legal minds."

The whole experience "will definitely make me more cautious," Frey's agent said. "But, at the end of the day, I guess I hope I'll still be able to take people at their word--even while I'm checking out their stories."

Editors taking writers at their word is where the newspaper and magazine industries got Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair and a host of serial plagiarists and fabricators. Now it's dumped "A million little pieces" of distrust on the book publishing industry.

During the 2003 Blair brouhaha, I took this stand on the question of trust:

"Journalism, even the creative kind, is built on lots of things, but trust wouldn’t top my list. Good journalism is built on passionate inquiry, indefatigable pursuit of evidence, healthy skepticism, obsession for accuracy, and a near-pathological fear of error—a determination to get things right no matter what it takes.

"Jayson Blair was wrong. As was Stephen Glass. Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle too.

"But so were editors who trusted them. If anything good can come from this, it won’t be pretty, but it will be good for journalism.

"It's an editor's job to vet stories. To role-play the reader. To have the dirty mind and see the double-entendres the writer is blind to—or perhaps thinks would be cute to get past the desk."

"It’s not an editor’s job to trust a reporter."

Or in light of James Frey's self-admitted liteary deceptions, here's a mashup of my thoughts in 2003 and today's reflections on his agent's remarks:

It’s an editor’s job (or for that matter, maybe an agent's too, at least if neither wants to end up staring into the business end of a smoking gun or a steely-eyed Oprah) to challenge, to probe, to prosecute a story, to be the ally, not of his or her colleague, (or client) but ultimately the advocate for readers who deserve to get what they think they're paying for.

Comments

[Bea Vanni]

On Feb. 10th, I blogged about the James Frey incident too, but my slant was more about getting your message to the reader. Afterall, that is what's important about a book.
Obviously, his book was quite inspirational and probably told a story which is all too common for the drug addict or alcoholic and their path toward sobriety.
Does Frey's embellishments lessen the impact of the actual message? I think not; unless of course, people are so easily swayed by knowing some words or events were not real. The written word is always open to interpretation.
Remember Norma Khouri who wrote "Forbidden Love" and marketed it as non-fiction? Well, none of that book was true, but I still enjoyed the read and learned from the perspective shared.
Her message was not off track because what she said is experienced by many women throughout the world.
So, I consider honesty of great import, especially in our written work, but I also think that the message of the book is what should win out in the end.