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A Million Little Pieces

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A Million Little Pieces A A Million Little Pieces defense took place on the Larry King Show, during which time Winfrey surprised some fans by calling in with her Category: Literature support for Frey. Date: Published April 15, 2003 As the event unfolded, Frey became the target of a Few other book scandals reached the magnitude of A Mil- seemingly endless barrage of public jokes and vicious hate lion Little Pieces. The book was published in 2003 by mail while angry and hurt readers sued for compensation. Doubleday, a division of Random House, as a memoir that detailed the author James Frey’s battle with drug and alco- hol addiction. After winding up on a path of self-destruc- tion, he endured various rehabilitation methods until he successfully regained both his health and control of his life. The narrative resonated especially with other addicts who tended to view the book as a self-help manual. Its publication represented a growing interest in the memoir genre and appealed to fans for its captivating narrative, crafty writing, and confessional nature. In 2005, Oprah Winfrey selected A Million Little Pieces for her popular book club, thus ensuring Frey of instant ce- lebrity status and his book a place on the New York Times Best Sellers list. While most readers enjoyed the book at face value, investigators at the Smoking Gun website be- gan questioning some of the incidents and dates. Their full investigation, released in early 2006, showed that Frey had misrepresented himself numerous times, including lying about a three-month-long period of incarceration. Frey went on the defensive, refusing to admit he had intention- ally deceived his readers and blaming discrepancies on po- etic license and faulty memory. Nevertheless, he and his publisher agreed to offer refunds to readers and to include a disclaimer from Frey in future printings. His most public James Frey. (Rhododendrites via Wikimedia Commons) AMERICAN GAME CHANGERS / 1 ABU GHRAIB TORTURE SCANDAL Frey and Random House eventually settled a class-action The Abu Ghraib story, when it appeared in a series of lawsuit for $2.35 million. Oprah again invited him to ap- articles in the New Yorker, caused an international outrage. pear on her show, but this time she shamed him A fifty-three page report about the abuse, written by Major mercilessly. General Antonio M. Taguba and leaked by the New Yorker, elucidated a plethora of instances of blatant and Impact criminal abuses against the Iraqi prisoners. U.S. soldiers The scandal’s wider impact included the instigation of a perpetrated such acts as kicking, beating and sodomizing national dialogue about truth and writers’ responsibilities detainees; forcing them to strip naked, masturbate, or per- to their readers. While Frey eventually recovered and went form like animals; and making threats of rape. Graphic ev- on to publish additional books, the scandal—along with idence, including eyewitness accounts and photographs, others—ultimately changed the publishing industry. Pub- backed up the allegations. lishers felt themselves under tighter scrutiny, and, wary of future scandals, began to include fact-checking in the pub- The War in Iraq lishing process, at a time when publishers were already be- Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, ing squeezed as a result of changes in the digital age. President Bush launched the War on Terrorism, which em- broiled the United States in separate wars in Afghanistan —Sally Driscoll and Iraq. During the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, located just west of Baghdad, had For Further Information emerged as an internationally infamous prison demarked Birdsall, Kate. “A Contradictory Assemblage of Self: James Frey, Creative Nonfiction, and the Empire of Oprah.” Jac, vol. 33, no. by bloodshed, torture, and filthy living conditions caused 1-2, 2013, pp: 85-120. by overcrowding. The United States entered the war in Hamilton, Geoff. “Mixing Memoir and Desire: James Frey, Wound Iraq predicated on the premise of eliminating such auto- Culture, and the ‘Essential American Soul’.” Journal of cratic brutality and ushering in a democratic free society American Culture, vol. 30, no. 3, 2007, pp: 324-33. for the oppressed Iraqi people. However, the impulsive na- Peretz, Evgenia. “James Frey’s Morning After.” Vanity Fair. 1 ture of US war plans led to several missteps that the Bush June 2008. Rak, Julie. “Memoir, Truthiness, and the Power of Oprah.” Prose administration would have to address and served as a Studies, vol. 34, no. 3, 2012, pp: 224-242. major hindrance to the establishment of peace in the Wyatt, Edward. “Best-Selling Memoir Draws Scrutiny.” The New Middle East. York Times, 10 Jan. 2006. After the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve general and intelligence and operations officer, was placed in charge of all military Abu Ghraib Torture Scandal prisons in Iraq, a service novel to her despite her experi- Categories: International Relations; Military; Politics ence in the Gulf War and in Special Services. Soon there- Date: Became public April 2004 after, Karpinski was formally suspended pending an investigation of the Army’s prison system, which would Abu Ghraib prison was a detention center for captured uncover a widespread, systematic abuse of power. Iraqis run by the United States from 2003 to 2006 during The investigation led to a report, written by Major Gen- the Iraq War. In 2004, the revelation of graphic and dis- eral Antonio M. Taguba and leaked to the public by the turbing photographs of U.S. Army prison guards abusing New Yorker. Taguba’s report states that the following acts Iraqi detainees shocked the world, appearing in conjunc- were perpetrated by US soldiers in Abu Ghraib: tion with revelations that the United States had secretly ap- a. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping proved interrogation techniques long condemned as on their naked feet; torture by the international community. The story was bro- ken by veteran reporter Seymour Hersch who, years be- b. Videotaping and photographing naked male and fe- fore, had reported on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, in male detainees; which hundreds of Vietnamese civilians had been brutally c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually ex- murdered by U.S. soldiers. plicit positions for photographing; 2 / AMERICAN GAME CHANGERS ABU GHRAIB TORTURE SCANDAL d. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keep- foreign detainees at various sites: Afghanistan, Iraq, ing them naked for several days at a time; Guantanamo Bay, and other US-sponsored foreign e. Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s un- autocracies. derwear; Cultural Implications, Political Crisis, and Public f. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate them- Opinion selves while being photographed and videotaped; The political scandal that emerged in light of the Abu g. Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then Ghraib prison scandal reflected US sociocultural attitudes jumping on them; after the September 11 attacks to people of Middle Eastern descent. Abu Ghraib became emblematic of a salient h. Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a American attitude of superiority that rendered Arabs as vi- sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fin- olent terrorists whose cultural practices were inferior to gers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; those of the United States. The dehumanization of the pris- i. Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee oners was particularly humiliating and denigrating be- alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow cause homosexuality in the Arab world violates Islamic detainee, and then photographing him naked; law. j. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s Critics of US foreign policy viewed such behavior as il- neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture; lustrative of the United States’ disregard toward non- Westerners. The scandal worsened with the Bush adminis- k. A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee; tration’s response to the crisis as they tried to lessen the l. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to in- damage to America’s reputation both at home and abroad. timidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one Bush’s official apology deflected responsibility for the case biting and severely injuring a detainee; acts, asserting that such treatment was not indicative of the m. Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees. US Army’s protocol abroad and was reprehensible. He did so to buttress the credibility of the United States in foreign The Department of Defense subsequently dishonorably affairs; the nation’s position within the international com- discharged and prosecuted seventeen of the soldiers and munity was already tenuous because of the War on Terror- officers who had participated in the abuse. Participants ism. Bush’s apology created a chasm between US forces in from various government agencies also resigned. Iraq and the Iraqi people, which heightened the brutality of The rhetoric of the 1980s regarding torture faded away attacks on US forces during the Iraq War. There were during the 2000s, when American conservatives and mixed reactions to Bush’s apology from the American exceptionalists alleged that the United States had a right to public, as it both repaired his public image at home and torture—the practice was already a normalized facet of US further destroyed his credibility. foreign policy. The Pentagon conceded in 1996 that the School of the Americas used training manuals on torture Impact based on the methods utilized during the Vietnam War. In International outrage at the treatment of Iraqi prisoners addition, various cases during the twentieth century dem- held at Abu Ghraib led to institutional changes within the onstrated US-sponsored torture and abuse, such as the US military prison system in Iraq.
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