At the beginning of Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes there is a strange little note from the author explaining that his work, which he and his publisher decided to call a "fictional memoir," is a combination of fact and fiction. "I have drawn freely from the imagination," Exley writes. "I ask to be judged as a writer of fantasy." When I read A Fan's Note, first published in 1968, I imagined these sorts of notes were no longer printed because everyone now assumed this to be true of memoirs. Future printings of A Million Little Pieces will bear an Exley-like disclaimer.

But this idea that memoir and fiction are wholly separate is a young and unstable one. Early novels are full of confessional airs and their authors go to great lengths to fabricate factual pedigrees. These days, a memoir publisher is never so happy as when a reviewer provides them with a "reads like a novel" to paste on the cover. The thinly-veiled memoir as first novel is well recognized and yet Larry King is not interested in the bits of fiction that were lifted from real life. The lines between fiction and memoir are as artificial as the Fiction and Literature shelving categories in many bookstores.

The dictionary defines a memoir as "a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or special sources. An autobiography or written account of one's memory of certain events or people." The word historical shows up in that mix, but there is hardly anything to hold us to journalistic standards of fact-checkability. Subjective phrases abound: Personal experiences. Sketch. Personal knowledge. Memory.

Suddenly the word "memoir" has gained a great deal of flexibility. While I consent that it was never to be held up to the standards of journalism, the memoir is now being regarded as a new hybrid genre of fiction and autobiography. This is a strange phenomenon (Oprah, along with the fraudulent book's success, is to blame). The memoir is a nonfiction genre. Undoubtedly, many terrific memoirs and autobiographies do, in fact, contain many embellishments. But an author who writes such a book should be wise enough to make his embellishments about small, unimportant things -- not about jail time and deaths of human beings. Certainly not about anything that a website could totally disprove by some simple checking of public records. Nonfiction books that are found to be filled with falsehoods should not be treated like fiction, nor should they be thought of as "mostly true." When deliberate falsehoods -- lies -- are discovered in a work that is meant to be a personal account of the truth, the validity of the entire work comes into question. In other words, nobody should take James Frey's word that only 5% of the book is outside of "the realm of what's appropriate for a memoir." (Can we pause and think about what a weird thing this is for him to have said?)

(That is a weird thing to say, Josh.) The value of Pieces remains the same. If it was inspiring or motivating to some people, that should not be changed by its demotion from exaggerated truth to thinly veiled fiction. The Kite Runner, another blockbuster book that has people invoking life lessons and emotional power, is a novel, but one obviously informed by experience. The veracity of Frey's work doesn't effect its emotional power. As a novel, Pieces would still offer a compelling approach to addiction.

The most regrettable thing here is that the classification of A Million Little Pieces was likely fueled by a memoir-crazed publishing world and readers thirsty for a confessional patina of legitimacy. Books, too, seek the sort of titillation we get from "ripped from the headlines" teevee shows and "based on a true story" movies. But I think part of us knows we're getting, and wants to get, sensationalized truth. If Pieces had been published as a novel, we would have been subjected to a torrent of press about how closely Frey's life mirrors his best-selling novel.

I understand chagrin that a love of semi-true stories has led people to shoehorn novels into memoir's clothes. I do not understand outrage or surprise that the story in A Million Little Pieces cannot be rigorously fact-checked. If it was known at the time of review that the book was first rejected as a novel, isn't it a bit naïve to now expect a rigid division between fiction and memoir?

Were James Frey writing about socks or cheese sandwiches or picking the linens up from the cleaners, perhaps I would feel more forgiving. But he's writing about addiction and overcoming addiction. This is weighty subject matter. Furthermore, Frey presents himself as the anti-Dr. Bob. No higher power is needed, no support group, no help at all. Frey can do it himself (and you can, too, so the logic goes). This differs radically from contemporary thought on addiction, and while "radical thought" is not always bad, it would be nice to know that it wasn't built out of a heap of bullshit. If Frey's book is as moving and well-written as millions feel that it is, it ought to have been sold as fiction and not had to contend with these issues. Where would the harm have been?

Frey, who did in fact try to sell the book as a novel, is not necessarily to blame. Maybe the issue is that the powers that be felt that they could not win Oprah's endorsement, could not sell two million copies, if A Million Little Pieces was sold as a powerful novel about addiction by a former addict, a great book with a lot of truth in it, rather than a book that is true.

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