Oprah Winfrey

Oprah’s book flub

Her latest pick -- James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" -- is bad news for her viewers and her show.

  • more
    • All Share Services

Oprah's book flub

Late last month, Oprah announced a major change in her influential book club. Leaving behind the classics of Tolstoy, McCullers and Faulkner, she’s once again focusing on work by living authors. This time around, however, featured titles won’t necessarily be novels. Memoir, biography, history — they’re all fair game now. In the same breath, Oprah alerted fans to her first selection for the club’s newest incarnation: James Frey’s 2003 recovery memoir, “A Million Little Pieces.”

At first glance, Frey’s book seems like a fine pick. Although it’s a memoir, it shares with many of Oprah’s fictional picks an overwhelming message of triumph; the underdog has beaten the odds and come out on top. In “A Million Little Pieces,” the then-23-year-old upper-middle-class kid Frey (who shares my father’s name but is no relation) goes into rehab, where he kicks his addiction to almost everything: coke, crack, alcohol, glue — you name it. Rejecting the 12 steps, Frey relies on little more than the “Tao Te Ching” for support. His portrait of withdrawal is graphic and ugly; at one point, he undergoes two root canals without anesthesia (no drugs for addicts, after all), and he generally spends a lot of time retching into the john. But Frey’s is a success story — he gets clean and, judging from his follow-up memoir, “My Friend Leonard,” stays that way.

Yet, Frey’s book is a peculiar choice. The advantage to featuring books by living writers is pretty basic: Wally Lamb, Anita Shreve and Janet Fitch — unlike, say, Faulkner — are all available to go on to “Oprah” to discuss their work. And the point of talking about fiction is to learn about the craft, to think deeply about the way a story unfolds, and to recall and share that unique sublime emotion that comes only with investing oneself — heart and mind — in something that is not true. A novelist might appear on “Oprah” and have a conversation over dinner, with Oprah and a few viewers; the writer will answer questions about characters and all the imaginative choices that go into dreaming up a plot. But when Frey is a guest on “Oprah” later this month, how will that work?

Frey is the author and main character of his book, and the plot of “A Million Little Pieces” is his actual life. A discussion of Frey’s work, then, amounts to a discussion of James Frey. On the show — and in their own homes, as they finish their weekly assignments — book clubbers will pick apart the causes of Frey’s addiction and analyze his parents and what they may or may not have done to contribute to his problems. (And you do get the sense, reading the book, that Frey is very, very angry with his parents, even as he doesn’t outright blame them for his turn to drugs. Note: They pay for his rehab.) Readers will dissect the “rage” Frey carries like an old blanket throughout his book. Oprah’s fans — who have become careful, close readers of literature — will in the end rely on their skills in pop psychology as they try to make something of this memoir.

In other words, the conversation with, or about, James Frey will likely not be about creation, or books or literature, but about destruction — of Frey’s and his friends’ and family members’ lives. There is something inherently creepy about a million-odd people discussing — over a series of weeks, online and at home — how and why James Frey became a drug addict. And there is something frustrating in that these debates will take place under the guise of a discussion about a piece of writing.

But “A Million Little Pieces” isn’t a poor choice for the most successful book club in the world solely because scrutinizing it amounts only to picking apart its author. To put it plain, this book just isn’t that good. In 2003, just before “A Million Little Pieces” was first published, Frey gave a manic interview to the New York Observer during which he exclaimed, “I’m going to try to write the best book of my generation and I’m going to try to be the best writer.” Well, he’s not even close.

To be sure, Frey has perfected his own style or, rather, anti-style: his is a Kerouacian, expletive-laced, bare-bones kind of writing that eschews punctuation and radiates machismo. Oprah — who admits that “A Million Little Pieces” is “a radical departure” for her book club — says it’s “raw”; another reader might find it numbing. “Something else comes and it makes me feel weak and scared and fragile and I don’t want to be hurt and this feeling is the feeling I have when I know I can be hurt and hurt deeper and more terribly than anything physical and I always fight it and control it and stop it but…” Frey writes, on and on until “I start to cry. I start to cry. I start to cry.” He’s filled another page where each line consists on just one or two words: “Damage irreparable./ Cry./ Fight./ Mom./ Dad./ Brother./ Cry./ Fight./ Live./ Torch./ Pipe./ Bottle…”

Is this even writing? All of “A Million Little Pieces” is like this. His autobiography on the “Oprah” Web site is like this (though, to be fair, he uses more commas). In the book, each time he leans over the toilet to regurgitate bits of his stomach, he tries to drive home how hard and gross and painful it is to get off drugs. (“I crawl to the front of the toilet,” he writes. “When I get to the toilet, I vomit. The vomit is full of bile and brown shit that I have never seen before. It is full of blood. It burns my stomach, my throat and my mouth. It burns my lips and my face. It won’t stop. I heave and it comes, the burning vomit comes and comes again and again.”) But too often the horror of his reality is made unreal by his posturing, by his aggressive toughness, by the monotonous rhythm of the way he writes. If Frey’s story is powerful at all it’s for the facts — the sickness, the hurt, the fatigue of withdrawal — not for his rendition of them.

When Oprah started her book club, she quickly became the most powerful advocate for reading in America — reading novels, in particular. With our culture so heavily focused on literature of self-improvement and health (see the endurance of Kevin Trudeau’s “Natural Cures ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About” and Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz’s “You: The Owner’s Manual” on the bestseller lists), Oprah did a worthy and wonderful thing by encouraging so many people to read fiction. Of course some of Oprah’s fans were readers before, but surely thousands of others hadn’t picked up a novel in years, let alone participated in a discussion of its shape and story. Oprah has spawned an entire population of serious readers — who else can claim such an achievement?

And what about her impact on the publishing industry? A literary novel that sells 20,000 copies is considered a success; many books bearing Oprah’s stamp have moved a million copies or more. As Sonny Mehta, the chairman of the literary publisher Knopf, told the New York Times recently, ”The fact that [Oprah] had 300,000 people reading William Faulkner over the summer — she should be given a cabinet post.”

Like practically everyone else in America, I love Oprah. However, I can’t help but hope that she’ll return to fiction again soon or, at the very least, choose a different kind of nonfiction book for her next club — something that seems more distinct from the other content on her show. The problem isn’t that Frey’s book is a memoir per se; it’s that it’s a memoir of addiction, of recovery — and a bad one at that. The books in her club — especially during the “classics” years — were markedly different from much of the rest of Oprah’s show, which already covers this terrain. With James Frey, the book club is losing its identity as a literary feature, morphing into yet another vehicle for self-help. His story might be shocking, but it isn’t art.

Of course, it’s possible that after finishing “A Million Little Pieces” Oprah’s viewers will agree. We’ll see how the ubiquitous “fuck’s” and puke scenes go down, not to mention the endless one-word sentences. Maybe, after years of coaching from Oprah herself, her acolytes will see Frey’s memoir for what it is: the story of a spoiled boy from the suburbs who nearly lost his life, and then cashed in on his mistakes and the misery he caused to so many people around him.

Hillary Frey is the Books editor at Salon.

NBC comedy stars keep themselves relevant after finales

Alec Baldwin and John Krasinski shill baseball hats in viral ads, "Community" character gives Emmy picks, and more

  • more
    • All Share Services

NBC comedy stars keep themselves relevant after finalesYankees vs. Red Sox, Baldwin vs. Krasinski, or "30 Rock" vs. "The Office": who is your favorite?

What do the stars of NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup do during their summer vacation? Keep themselves fresh, of course. Sometimes it’s a little hard to tell if these guys can separate themselves from their characters, but who’s complaining if there’s a real Ron Swanson or Jack Donaghy walking around?

“30 Rock’s” Alec Baldwin and “The Office’s” John Krasinski have figured out what they’re doing with their off-season, and that’s punching each other in the face about baseball. No, seriously. In this series for New Era Caps, Baldwin goes head to head with Jim Halpert over their Red Sox/Yankees rivalry. So far there have been three spots, and if you play them in succession it’s kind of like watching a crossover episode between the two shows.

Meanwhile, Amy Poehler isn’t the only cast member of “Parks and Recreation” keeping herself in the spotlight. While the comedian is off giving speeches at Harvard, her costar Nick Offerman (who plays her boss and meat-lover Ron Swanson) has been wooing Oprah to come play his first ex-wife next season.  As he told the Huffington Post:

“I think Oprah would be the only, she’s the only person we can think of that might be intimidating to Megan Mullally. It would be so good.”

He then added, “I can assure you if it’s not Oprah, I will quit.”

And while that’s doubtful, Oprah should actually consider it. She did cameo on “30 Rock,” so it’s only fair.

Rounding out the news cycle is Danny Pudi, who plays Abed on “Community.” Anyone who still thinks that show isn’t being taken seriously should check out Variety right now, where “Abed” has been given a column in-character for Emmy season. He’s predicting who will win the awards based solely on his extensive knowledge of television and film (despite never having seen the shows in question), as well as his more savant-like tendencies:

I sort the last four into two groups: a) shows that have won an Emmy, so it seems like they’ll win again, and b) shows that haven’t won yet, so it seems like their turn. Sorting every winner since “I Love Lucy” in 1953:

 B A B B A B A B B AA B B AB B A A B B AA A B A A B B A B B A B AB                              A A B B A A A A B B B B B B A B B A A B

The “ABBA” pattern emerges soon and repeats often, as people’s urge to shake up a system always results in systemic shaking. I totally get it: I once missed a week of school by trying not to touch my chin 7,000 times. The stretches of non-ABBA you see are “cable scares,” like when we just kept giving Emmys to “Frasier” until “Larry Sanders” went away. Think of TV as Rain Man getting through HBO’s smoke alarm by chanting “I like the guy from Cheers.”

The whole article is amazing, and by far my favorite post-finale offering from an NBC comedy actor. Then again, I’m a little biased.

Continue Reading Close

Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew.

Pop Torn: 10 pieces of culture we’re feeling iffy about

From "True Blood" to Mark Zuckerberg killing a goat to a purse made out of jerky, this week is all about meat

  • more
    • All Share Services

Pop Torn: 10 pieces of culture we're feeling iffy about

Memorial Day weekend, you guys! I know that I will be happy to wear all my white clothing again, because nothing says “I’ve been to a summer barbeque” like visible condiment sauce all over my clothing.

And with this warm weather comes tons of pop culture news stories that are just to the right of funky. We’ve rounded up some of the stranger stuff that we missed this week, and leave it up to you to decide if maybe being raptured wasn’t such a bad idea.

1. People who think the Onion’s headlines are real: Oh, it happens. And now it’s a Tumblr. (Expect a book deal in the near future.)

2. Abed from “Community” shows up on “Cougar Town”:

Easter egg for the super fans and the people who love Subway.

3. OWN picks up new series, “Don’t Tell the Bride“: Groom and future wife are separated for a month before the wedding; he has to make all the decisions about planning the event. Hope she likes nachos and a boob-shaped cake.

4. Student makes Chanel bag out of beef jerky:

(Photo by Nancy Wu)

Oh what? It’s all cowhide, no matter which way you look at it. Calm down and take a bite.

5. Museum-going men are happier than their counterparts: That 2 percent of the male population must be having a blast.

6. This mommy kitten is hugging her baby kitten:

Yes, dear, it’s very, very cute. Please let me go back to bed now, I have work in the morning. Well, if it’s so great, take a video of it! I’ll watch it later.

7. “Pop-Up Video” is coming back to VH1: Though now it’s just called “tweeting during music videos.”

8. “Jersey Shore’s” Ronnie and the Situation get into a fistfight in Florence: Really, guys? Really? Italy was ready to boot you out before you even showed up, and this is how you show your good behavior?

9. Mark Zuckerberg, woodsman: The Facebook CEO will only eat food he kills himself. His private message to friends on FB just read: “I just killed a pig and a goat.” And not on FarmVille.

10. “True Blood’s” fourth season trailer:Oh great, now I have to deal with witches?

Our thoughts exactly.

Continue Reading Close

Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew.

Conan’s Oprah fan taxonomy

O'Brien's guide to Oprah's audience rounds up familiar types, from "The Weeper" to "The Man Who Rocks and Claps"

  • more
    • All Share Services

Conan's Oprah fan taxonomy

Last night, Conan O’Brien celebrated Oprah Winfrey’s final show by honoring “the people who made the The Oprah Show truly special” over the years: her audience members. His team compiled a jokey Oprah-fan classification, encompassing all sorts — from “The Jumping Clapper” and “The Face Fanner” to “The Extremely Alarmed Grandma” and “The Man Who Rocks and Claps.”

 

Continue Reading Close

Emma Mustich is a Salon contributor. Follow her on Twitter: @emustich.

Oprah’s warm, funny, self-aggrandizing goodbye

Winfrey ends her show with a 42-minute monologue that encapsulates her many baffling contradictions

  • more
    • All Share Services

Oprah's warm, funny, self-aggrandizing goodbye

Oprah Winfrey’s final show summed up everything she’s been about for a quarter century. It was funny, warm, sweet and informative, and felt easygoing even though it was clearly written and rehearsed within a millimeter of its life. The episode had sharing and oversharing, confessions and anecdotes, photographs of Oprah in unfortunate clothes and hairstyles, and callbacks to shows and guests that made a big impression on the host during her journey toward self-knowledge — which, she assured us, was what her boundary-breaking, influential, astoundingly popular stint on daytime was truly about, anyway.

No, wait, scratch that. Her show wasn’t truly about Oprah at all. It was about you. All of you. But especially you, the individual sitting there watching her “every day,” as she said.

She had a message for you, the individual. Several messages, actually — and they were all intertwined: Take responsibility for your life. Be honest with yourself and others. Be responsible for the energy you put out in the world, because that energy comes back around eventually. Also: There is a God, or a life force, and you should get to know him/her/it, because he/she/it can improve your judgment and guide your life.

There was a clip reel of people admitting things on TV that they had never told close friends and family members. They said they were alcoholics or drug addicts, that they had HIV, that they had endured or inflicted spousal abuse. The confessions had a snowball effect and became collectively cathartic, Oprah said: “Little by little, we started to release the shame.”

One of the clips was of Oprah herself circa 1986, revealing that she herself had been sexually abused as a child. Another clip referenced the recent broadcast in which actor-director Tyler Perry said he’d been sexually abused as a child, then led an audience of 200 fellow sexual abuse survivors, all men, while they stood together holding pictures of themselves as kids.

Long sections of Oprah’s final syndicated broadcast, which amounted to a 42-minute monologue interspersed with video clips, suggested a church service, though precisely what kind varied from moment to moment.

Sometimes it felt like Sunday school for kids. Other times it felt like a sermon, or the opening remarks of a self-help group leader opening a meeting in a church basement.  “Don’t wait for anybody else to fix you, to save you or complete you,” she said. “‘Jerry Maguire’ was just a movie. [But] no one completes you. We have seen that with guest after guest. When you accept that you are responsible for your life, you…get….free.”

Still other times the broadcast evoked the famous sequence in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” where Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, presumed dead, attend their own funeral service and hear themselves eulogized. But here was Oprah doing the eulogizing. In an especially unfortunate moment, she suggested that God was responsible for the meeting of her father’s sperm and her mother’s egg. That may very well be true, but if so, it’s true for every other human being as well — and when you put it in the words that Oprah chose, it can’t help but sound oddly messianic.

Oprah’s last words before exiting stage left were, “to God be the glory.”

She talked about how, deep down, she really wanted to be a teacher, and near the end of the broadcast, she introduced her very first mentor, her fourth grade teacher Mrs. Mary Alice Duncan, who was sitting there in the audience, tearing up and grinning.

She said that her guests taught her that there was “no need to feel superior to anybody” because “there is a common thread that runs through all of our pain and all of our suffering, and that is unworthiness, not feeling worthy enough to own the life that you were created for…Your being here, your being alive, makes worthiness your birthright. You alone are enough.”

She said that within each person, no matter what his or her race, creed, color or life experience, is a little voice that asks, “Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?” That voice, Oprah said, was what she hoped to answer, encourage and embrace over the course of 25 years and 4,561 shows.

It would have been nice if, at some point during the telecast, even a single audience member had been permitted to utter one syllable. There was no dialogue, only monologue interspersed by cheers, laughter and applause. The key to Oprah’s success, she assured us, is that she knows that deep down, everyone wants to be heard. But in this last broadcast, nobody else got a word in edgewise.

It was a final summation in a career which, judged in terms of social good and emotional healing, required no defense. Oprah is a force for good, period. She may inspire love, loathing, bafflement, amusement, irritation, you name it, but there is no possible way to evalute the sum total of her career on TV without concluding that the world is a somewhat better place because she was in it. And yet here she was making a case for herself, Oprah Winfrey for the defense, as if she wasn’t worthy of all this attention and acclaim. As if she didn’t get her own memo. It was poignant in ways she herself probably didn’t intend.

She left her stage, her classroom, her pulpit, unfinished. A work in progress.

Continue Reading Close

Celebrities flock to Oprah’s penultimate show

From Jamie Foxx to Maria Shriver, the stars turn out to celebrate and honor daytime's favorite talk show host

  • more
    • All Share Services

Celebrities flock to Oprah's penultimate showOprah and Maria Shriver.

Oprah Winfrey’s final show airs tomorrow, and today’s second part of her “Farewell Spectacular” saw celebrities turn out in full force, a touching tribute to the woman who has been America’s best friend for 25 years.

Oddly enough, Oprah spent most of her show not trending on Twitter, though “surprise” guests like Tom Hanks, Michael Jordan, Maya Angelou, Jerry Seinfeld, Jamie Foxx, Stedman and Gayle all did. I use quotation marks because there are no surprise guests for Oprah … if Obama himself had taken the stage to wish her well, it would not have been that unexpected.

So perhaps the biggest surprise of today was a heartfelt speech by Oprah’s silent partner Stedman Graham. Looking nervous, Stedman said that he didn’t know of anyone else who could change so many people’s lives and also bring a bagged lunch to work.

Meanwhile, Dr. Maya Angelou’s contribution to the ceremony was a new poem, which she read accompanied by Alicia Keyes on the piano:

“Unplanned and unrehearsed, this big-eyed black girl from Mississippi, showed the world how to look at itself … She listened to the rich and the poor, the famous and the infamous … For 25 years she listened. … She said, ‘Be strong, be kind, and call me Oprah.’ I can. I will. And I shall. Be Oprah. I am. Oprah. Oprah. Oprah.”

Of course, not everyone took the same approach to honoring the living legend. Jerry Seinfeld used his five minutes to complain about his marriage, women in general, and how it’s Oprah’s fault that ladies mock their husbands. Then Jerry took his seat, directly next to Oprah, because they are best friends anyway.

Simon Cowell introduced a musical number where Rosie O’Donnell sang a reworked version of “Fever,” with special appearances by Dr. Phil, Nate Berkus and Dr. Oz (the last of which said Oprah’s gift to the world was teaching everyone about S-shaped poop). Usher, Kristin Chenoweth and Aretha Franklin filled out the non-ironic singing portion of the show.

The oddest moment of the episode was when Maria Shriver joined Oprah onstage with Gayle King to thank her friend for “giving me  … the most important gift of all … telling me the truth.” It was a loaded moment, though if Arnold was watching, the camera didn’t cut to him. This was Oprah’s day, after all.

Continue Reading Close

Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew.

Page 1 of 24 in Oprah Winfrey