QUILLBLOG

One last fish to Frey

One of the more perplexing things about the James Frey crucifixion on Oprah last week was publisher Nan Talese’s somewhat patrician attitude to Oprah’s anger at Doubleday’s failure to check any of the facts in Frey’s pseudo-memoir. Talese generally avoided Oprah’s most probing questions and said that up until she read the report on The Smoking Gun she believed in the absolute veracity of the book, including Frey’s contention that he had two root canals done without novocaine. Though Doubleday has since issued an apology over the incident, Talese remains unmoved by the whole affair, if an article in The Wall Street Journal is any indication. According to the article, Talese received a standing ovation from her underlings upon returning to her midtown Manhattan office and has since received more than 500 e-mails, the “overwhelming majority [of which] have been supportive,” she says, withoug specifying what exactly the respondents are in support of. The article also examines the supposed grey area between legal vetting and fact checking, and examines the possible repercussions on the non-fiction book market. (Thanks to Bookninja.com for the link.)

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Read the article in The Wall Street Journal

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