James Frey: giving L.A. its due
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Earlier this month, James Frey spoke to the Guardian in an audio interview. In addition to talking about his previous book, Frey read from his novel, ‘Bright Shiny Morning,’ and discussed its setting, Los Angeles. This undated photo accompanies the interview on the Guardian’s website (minus the blurred-out hands). A few excerpts:
Q: [‘Bright Shiny Morning’ is] a very grand sort of story. Were you consciously squaring up to the tradition of the Great American Novel? James Frey: Absolutely. Absolutely, you know? I think that’s the shot you have to take if you want to be a serious writer in America.... The best, most important, most meaningful writers have all tried to do it. This was my first shot at it, you know? I’ll probably take more. Q: Your models in this instance were...? James Frey: The model was Mailer or Tom Wolfe or Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Kerouac. You know, Brett Easton Ellis -- I thought ‘American Psycho’ was, in an odd way, taking a shot at that same thing. I hope at some point to be placed in the canon among those people. We’ll see if it happens. Q: How did you come to settle on Los Angeles as your subject? It’s very much a sort of cross-section of American life, but it’s very centrally focused on Los Angeles. James Frey: I lived in LA for eight years, and it’s a place I loved, and it’s a city -- I think is an amazing place. I think there have been a lot of books written about many of the great cities of the world where the city itself is a central character. It’s been done with Paris and Rome and Moscow. It’s been done many times with London and New York. And nobody had ever tried it with Los Angeles. And I thought it was, you know, it was due.
It’s great that Frey loves L.A. -- he goes on to talk about how big it is and how diverse. And nice that he wants to give the city its due. But I must point out that there are quite a few authors who’ve already done so. How about Joan Didion or James M. Cain? How about Raymond Chandler, Mike Davis, Budd Schulberg, Walter Mosley, Sandra Tsing Loh?
Wanna help expand Mr. Frey’s Los Angeles reading list?
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Photo from The Guardian
