Postscript, 19 months later: Talese, Oprah and Frey

During a Dallas-area writers’ conference over the weekend, Nan Talese, the publisher of James Frey’s "A Million Little Pieces," was asked about the ordeal involving Frey’s book during one of the sessions. Talese didn’t hesitate to respond, lamenting the way that she and Frey were treated when they appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," saying the host has "fiercely bad manners." The media are buzzing with her comments: "You don’t stone someone in public," Talese also said of the way Winfrey grilled them.

You may recall that when Talese appeared with Frey on "Oprah" in January 2006, she appeared calm and even somewhat sympathetic to the host’s distress. At the time, she called the entire mess over Frey’s fabrication of events in his memoir a "very sad" affair; she also tried to explain to Winfrey and millions of TV viewers her firm belief in trust between editors and writers when it comes to the facts. Winfrey would have none of it, but Talese was guarded in the face of the talk show diva’s fury. Not anymore. You can find her comments around the Web. The gossip site Gawker finds that Talese’s continued support for Frey’s memoir is completely wrong, but she does receive points for standing up to Winfrey’s self-righteous attitude and--a silly way to end their post--for having "those great teeth."

Time magazine online suggests that Talese was well-prepared--even expecting--to make comments directed against Winfrey during the conference. At one moment, she "pointedly turned toward the C-SPAN crew that was filming the event" and the rest of us may get a chance to view her remarks on C-SPAN’s Book TV by this weekend.
Nick Owchar

Comments

[RP]

Kudos to Talese for standing up to Hypocrite Oprah. The only reason Oprah booked Frey and Talese on her show in the aftermath of the "Pieces" implosion was ratings. She would command a large audience and then could have her opportunity to both blindside and run roughshod over both. Oprah epitomizes everything wrong with both the television and entertainment business, and anyone dumb enough to buy into the cult of Oprah should wise up, turn her off, and open a book.

[Sheryl]

Nan Talese is either a bigger hypocrite than Oprah Winfrey, or she's utterly incompetent.

AFTER ALL: She's the idiot editor who allowed A Million Little Pieces to be published as NON-FICTION.

If she just decided to ignore the distinction between a made up story (ficition) and a book based on relating real events, real facts, and intellectually honest interpretations of real evens and facts (non-fiction), then she's the bigger hypocrite.

If she truly can't see the difference, then she's utterly incompetent.

EITHER way, she and her lying ass writer deserved to to be savaged by not only Winfrey, but the rest of the reading public.

Personally, I'll never purchase another Nan Talese imprint book.