Remodeling

The rehabilitation of James Frey's reputation has begun. Frey, the author of the discredited memoir A Million Little Pieces, is back with a new novel. The title is subliminally optimistic: Bright, Shiny Morning, and it comes out this month.

Vanity Fair magazine is helping the author rehab with its profile of the literary bad boy. It turns out that his spectacular public meltdown, in which he had to back down from just about every claim in AMLP, was just boyish high spirits. VF waves it away saying, "Frey has fetishized breaking rules for as long as he’s been alive."--David E

5/13/08: Janet Maslin raved about Frey's new book in the New York Times; read it here.