Debating the Lessons of Frey

by Charlotte Abbott, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 1/27/2006

For many publishers, Oprah Winfrey’s lacerating interrogation of author James Frey and publisher Nan Talese yesterday drove home the question of whether fact-checking standards are stringent enough, while raising new concerns about how Frey’s publishers, acquiring editor and agent have handled the publication of his books.

Many publishers acknowledged the importance of the fact-checking issue, and the call for change by the book industry’s biggest media patron, though many remain circumspect about the viability of hiring factcheckers, as suggested by a journalist on Winfrey’s show. Grove’s Morgan Entrekin did the math: someone earning $35,000 a year could check 10,000 words a week at most, adding roughly $8,750 to the cost of producing a 125,000-word nonfiction book. “That’s more than the type-setting, copy editing and proof reading cost combined—and it’s just not viable,” he said.

What would hold the line on veracity? “We have to make sure we are going into business with people we can trust, we have to look at their CVs, look to their agents, and ask a lot of questions,” Entrekin said. Others emphasized the importance in nonfiction contracts of the author’s warrant that all facts are true to the best of the author’s knowledge and that it’s a breach of contract if there’s any proof that falsehoods were knowingly included. “But publishers would have to be more willing to sue,” said one observer, noting that such aggressive action runs against the industry’s genteel culture.

Winfrey’s charge that Doubleday had reassured her producers last September, after a Hazeldon counselor came forward with concerns about the veracity of A Million Little Pieces, also raised new questions. “Did Doubleday contact Frey? If they did ask him if there was anything there and he lied to them, then [his deception] is even worse,” said Entrekin. Others questioned why, if the house had any reason to doubt Frey at that point, they didn’t take steps to add a disclaimer or press Frey to address them sooner.

In any case, Anchor has opted not reprint the book with the Oprah Book Club seal. “We decided even before the show ran yesterday that it wouldn’t be on the book,” said Anchor publicity director Russell Perreault. “As soon she had moved on to Night, we decided to drop it,” he said.

In the industry, questions surrounding acquiring editor Sean McDonald’s role in the publication of A Million Little Pieces also grew sharper, after Talese told Winfrey that no one at Doubleday had raised questions about the veracity of the book. As the acquiring editor under Talese, it would have been McDonald’s job to raise any red flags about Pieces in-house. McDonald is the first person Frey thanks in his acknowledgements for Pieces and was close enough to Frey that when McDonald left Doubleday/Talese, Frey followed him, to publish My Friend Leonard at Riverhead Books. “He does bear some responsibility for this and hasn’t taken any, while watching his former colleagues suffer under the scrutiny.” said one agent. “How come he hasn’t made a statement?”

Others are wondering about the role of Frey’s agent, Kassie Evashevski at Brillstein-Grey. As a publisher, Grove’s Entrekin said he felt miffed by her silence. “Agents are a business partner of the author, and they can speak to a very signficant aspect of this conversation,” he said. Others said she had a responsibility to clear up the issue of whether the book was submitted to publishers as fiction or nonfiction, and how it was presented it to Doubleday.