The electrifying opening of James Frey's debut memoir, A Million Little Pieces, smash-cuts to the then 23-year-old author on a Chicago-bound plane "covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood." Wanted by authorities in three states, without ID or any money, his face mangled and missing four front teeth, Frey is on a steep descent from a dark marathon of drug abuse. His stunned family checks him into a famed Minnesota drug treatment center where a doctor promises "he will be dead within a few days" if he starts to use again, and where Frey spends two agonizing months of detox confronting "The Fury" head on:

I want a drink. I want fifty drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want fifty bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, five hundred hits of acid, a garbage bag filled with mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can.

One of the more harrowing sections is when Frey submits to major dental surgery without the benefit of anesthesia or painkillers (he fights the mind-blowing waves of "bayonet" pain by digging his fingers into two old tennis balls until his nails crack). His fellow patients include a damaged crack addict with whom Frey wades into an ill-fated relationship, a federal judge, a former championship boxer, and a mobster (who, upon his release, throws a hilarious surf-and-turf bacchanal, complete with pay-per-view boxing). In the book's epilogue, when Frey ticks off a terse update on everyone, you can almost hear the Jim Carroll Band's brutal survivor's lament "People Who Died" kicking in on the soundtrack of the inevitable film adaptation.

The rage-fueled memoir is kept in check by Frey's cool, minimalist style. Like his steady mantra, "I am an Alcoholic and I am a drug Addict and I am a Criminal," Frey's use of repetition takes on a crisp, lyrical quality which lends itself to the surreal experience. The book could have benefited from being a bit leaner. Nearly 400 pages is a long time to spend under Frey's influence, and the stylistic acrobatics (no quotation marks, random capitalization, left-aligned text, wild paragraph breaks) may seem too self-conscious for some readers, but beyond the literary fireworks lurks a fierce debut. --Brad Thomas Parsons


From Publishers Weekly
Frey is pretender to the throne of the aggressive, digressive, cocky Kings David: Eggers and Foster Wallace. Pre-pub comparisons to those writers spring not from Frey's writing but from his attitude: as a recent advance profile put it, the 33-year-old former drug dealer and screenwriter "wants to be the greatest literary writer of his generation." While the Davids have their faults, their work is unquestionably literary. Frey's work is more mirrored surface than depth, but this superficiality has its attractions. With a combination of upper-middle-class entitlement, street credibility garnered by astronomical drug intake and PowerPoint-like sentence fragments and clipped dialogue, Frey proffers a book that is deeply flawed, too long, a trial of even the most na‹ve reader's credulousness-yet its posturings hit a nerve. This is not a new story: boy from a nice, if a little chilly, family gets into trouble early with alcohol and drugs and stays there. Pieces begins as Frey arrives at Hazelden, which claims to be the most successful treatment center in the world, though its success rate is a mere 17%. There are flashbacks to the binges that led to rehab and digressions into the history of other patients: a mobster, a boxer, a former college administrator, and Lilly, his forbidden love interest, a classic fallen princess, former prostitute and crack addict. What sets Pieces apart from other memoirs about 12-stepping is Frey's resistance to the concept of a higher power. The book is sure to draw criticism from the recovery community, which is, in a sense, Frey's great gimmick. He is someone whose problems seem to stem from being uncomfortable with authority, and who resists it to the end, surviving despite the odds against him. The prose is repetitive to the point of being exasperating, but the story, with its forays into the consciousness of an addict, is correspondingly difficult to put down.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Frey's high school and college years are a blur of alcohol and drugs, culminating in a full-fledged crack addiction at age 23. As the book begins, his fed-up friends have convinced an airline to let him on the plane and shipped him off to his parents, who promptly put him in Hazelden, the rehabilitation clinic with the greatest success rate, 20 percent. Frey doesn't shy away from the gory details of addiction and recovery; all of the bodily fluids make major appearances here. What really separates this title from other rehab memoirs, apart from the author's young age, is his literary prowess. He doesn't rely on traditional indentation, punctuation, or capitalization, which adds to the nearly poetic, impressionistic detail of parts of the story. Readers cannot help but feel his sickness, pain, and anger, which is evident through his language. Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (Viking, 1962) seems an apt comparison for this work-Frey maintains his principles and does not respect authority at all if it doesn't follow his beliefs. And fellow addicts are as much, if not more, help to him than the clinicians who are trying to preach the 12 steps, which he does not intend to follow in his path to sobriety. This book is highly recommended for teens interested in the darker side of human existence.Jamie Watson, Enoch Pratt Free Library, BaltimoreCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
An alcoholic and crack addict so physically mauled by his indulgences that doctors marveled that he was still alive, Frey finally cleaned himself up at age 23. Here he takes full responsibility for nearly destroying himself. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
A shatteringly good listen, A MILLION LITTLE PIECES is brought to life by Oliver Wyman's searing performance. Imagine a post-millennial Holden Caulfield with severe drug and alcohol dependence bulling his way through a world he hates and fears. This tersely poetic journal relates author Frey's experience of hitting bottom somewhere deep below sea level and finding himself a battered 23-year-old funneled to the country's best rehab facility, desperately hoping he can recover. Raw, graphic, intelligent, visceral, this work should be mandatory classroom fare and nominated for something! A sobering piece, not to be missed. D.J.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
*Starred Review* At 23, Frey allowed his parents to check him into a rehabilitation facility in Minnesota. An alcoholic and a crack addict, Frey had hit absolute rock bottom. The doctor at the rehab center told him another drinking binge might kill him. To Frey, who was vomiting blood and dreaming of copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, there didn't seem to be another option. And then, on the night he attempted his escape from the center, a fellow patient named Leonard stopped him. And thus began the horrible, hard climb to sobriety. Frey was inundated with success stories and 12-step dogma, but he continued to resist both AA and the idea that only a belief in a higher power can save someone who has fallen so far. Leonard remained a constant friend in Frey's struggle, sharing the story of his own tragic past and bolstering Frey's determination. Frey found a different kind of support in Lilly, a vulnerable young woman with whom he fell in love. Anger, hurt, love, and pain are all laid bare; his writing style is as naked and forthright as the raw emotions that life in the rehab center brings to the surface. Starkly honest and mincing no words, Frey bravely faces his struggles head on, and readers will be mesmerized by his account of his ceaseless battle against addiction. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“The most lacerating tale of drug addiction since William S. Burroughs’ Junky.” —The Boston Globe

“Again and again, the book delivers recollections that leave the reader winded and unsteady. James Frey’s staggering recovery memoir could well be seen as the final word on the topic.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A brutal, beautifully written memoir.”—The Denver Post

“Gripping . . . A great story . . . You can’t help but cheer his victory.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

“From the get-go, [Frey’s] book sets itself a part, its narrative unspooling in short, unindented paragraphs and barely punctuated sentences whose spare, deadpan language belies the horror of what he’s describing – a meltdown dispatched in telegrams.” —The New York Times Book Review

“One of the best stories of transformation I’ve ever read. . . . Anyone who has ever felt broken and wished for a better life will find inspiration in Frey’s story. This won’t be the last we’ll hear of him.” —People

“A ripping, gripping read. It’s a staggeringly sober book whose stylistic tics are well-suited to its subject matter, and a finger in the eye of the culture of complaint . . . Engrossing.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

“A frenzied, electrifying description of the experience.” –The New Yorker

“We finish A Million Little Pieces like miners lifted out of a collapsed shaft: exhausted, blackened, oxygen-starved, but alive, thrillingly, amazingly alive.” –Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“One of the most compelling books of the year… Incredibly bold…Somehow accomplishes what three decades’ worth of cheesy public service announcements and after-school specials have failed to do: depict hard-core drug addiction as the self-inflicted apocalypse that it is.” –The New York Post

“Thoroughly engrossing . . . Hard-bitten existentialism bristles on every page . . . Frey’s prose is muscular and tough, ideal for conveying extreme physical anguish and steely determination.” –Entertainment Weekly

“Incredible… Mesmerizing…Heart-rending.” –Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A rising literary star… has birthed a poetic account of his recovery. [A Million Little Pieces is] stark… disturbing… rife with raw emotion...” –Chicago Sun-Times

“Frey will probably be hailed in turn as the voice of a generation.” –Elle Magazine

“We can admire Frey for his fierceness, his extremity, his solitary virtue, the angry ethics of his barroom tribe, and his victory over his furies… A compelling book.” –New York Magazine

“An intimate, vivid and heartfelt memoir. Can Frey be the greatest writer of his generation? Maybe.” –New York Press

“Incredible… A ferociously compelling memoir.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Insistent as it is demanding… A story that cuts to the nerve of addiction by clank-clank-clanking through the skull of the addicted… A critical milestone in modern literature.” –Orlando Weekly

“At once devastatingly bleak and heartbreakingly hopeful. . . . Frey somehow manages to make his step-by-step walk through recovery compelling.” –Charlotte Observer

“A stark, direct and graphic documentation of the rehabilitation process . . . The strength of the book comes from the truth of the experience.” –The Oregonian

“A virtual addiction itself, viscerally affecting . . . Compulsively readable.” –City Paper (Washington, DC)

“Powerful . . . haunting . . . addictive . . . A beautiful story of recovery and reconciliation.” –Iowa City Press-Citizen

“An exhilarating read . . . Frey’s intense, punchy prose renders his experiences with electrifying immediacy.” –Time Out New York

“Describes the hopelessness and the inability to stop with precision . . . As anyone who has ever spent time in a rehab can testify, . . . he gets that down too.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Frey comes on like the world’s first recovering-addict hero. . . . [His] criticism of the twelve-step philosophy is provocative and his story undeniably compelling.” –GQ

“[A] gruesomely absorbing account, told in stripped-down, staccato prose.” –Details

“Frey has devised a rolling, pulsating style that really moves . . . undeniably striking. . . . A fierce and honorable work that refuses to glamorize [the] author’s addiction or his thorny personality. . . . A book that makes other recovery memoirs look, well, a little pussy-ass.” –Salon


Review
"James Frey has written the War and Peace of addiction. It lends new meaning to the word 'harrowing' and one sometimes shudders to read it. But deep down, beneath all the layers and the masks, there lives something unconquerable in Frey's hurt spirit... And the writing, the writing, the writing."
-Pat Conroy

"A Million Little Pieces is as intense and perfectly detailed an account of a human quitting his drug and alcohol dependency as you are likely to read. And James Frey is horribly honest and funny in a young-guard Eggers and Wallace sort of way, but perhaps more contained and measured. He is unerring in his descent into a world where the characters need help in such extremely desperate ways. Read this immediately.?
?Gus Van Sant

"A Million Little Pieces is this generation's most comprehensive book about addiction: a heartbreaking memoir defined by its youthful tone and poetic honesty. Beneath the brutality of James Frey?s painful process of growing up, there are simple gestures of kindness that will reduce even the most jaded to tears. Very few books earn those tears -- this one does. It will have you sobbing, laughing, angry, frustrated, and most importantly, hopeful. A Million Little Pieces is inspirational and essential. A remarkable performance."
-Bret Easton Ellis


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Prodigiously talented, poetic, unflinchingly honest, and relentlessly present. A lot to live up to? Not if you're James Frey, whose memoir Pat Conroy calls "the War and Peace of addiction." As Frey will unapologetically assert, he's an Alcoholic and a Drug Dealer and a Criminal (caps his). When we meet him, he has finally hit rock bottom after a long descent into the swirling vortex of addiction, which he narrates with an in-your-face immediacy.

In rehab, Frey contemplates suicide, imagining "the happy lies" that will replace the truth in his obituary -- the fabricated transformation from reckless crackhead to "helpless martyr." But Frey's refusal to accept a conjured reality becomes his road to salvation: for if he alone is responsible for his condition and recovery, there's nobody else to blame.

Frey's stint in rehab is just two months long, but in that short time he learns that to trust himself, he must learn to trust others. He meets a shady underworld boss, a judge learning to hold himself to the standards he sets for others, a tragically beautiful crack whore, and a dangerous bully with demons worse than addiction. Despite the darkness that shadows them all as they struggle back to life, Frey withholds judgment of all but himself and embraces the purest form of personal responsibility. In doing so, he fights his way free. (Spring 2003 Selection)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Imagine waking up on a plane. You have no idea where you have been or where you are going, you have no memory of the preceding two weeks." "Imagine that your front four teeth have been knocked out, your nose is broken, and there is a gash on your cheek. Imagine that you have no wallet, no money, no job." "Imagine the police in three states are looking for you." "Imagine that you have been an alcoholic for ten years and a crack addict for three. What would you do? What would you do?" When he entered a residential treatment center at the age of twenty-three, James Frey had destroyed his body and his mind almost beyond repair. He faced a stark choice: accept that he wasn't going to see twenty-four or step into the fallout of his smoking wreck of a life and take drastic action. Surrounded by patients as troubled as he - including a judge, a mobster, a former world-champion boxer, and a fragile former prostitute - and a droning dogma of How to Recover, Frey had to fight to find his own way to confront the consequences of the life he had lived so far, and to determine what future, if any, he holds. A Million Little Pieces is an uncommonly genuine account of a life destroyed and a life reconstructed.

SYNOPSIS

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“The most lacerating tale of drug addiction since William S. Burroughs’ Junky.” —The Boston Globe

The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of A Million Little Pieces, James Frey’s furious and inspired memoir of addiction and recovery.

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

[A] thoroughly engrossing memoir...

The San Francisco Chronicle

[I]t gives away nothing to say that he finds himself whole at the end of A Million Little Pieces. How that came to be would be a first-rate tale of suspense, if it weren't drawn so hideously from an actual life.—James Sullivan

Publishers Weekly

For as long as he can remember, Frey has had within him something that he calls "the Fury," a bottomless source of anger and rage that he has kept at bay since he was 10 by obliterating his consciousness with alcohol and drugs. When this memoir begins, the author is 23 and is wanted in three states. He has a raw hole in his cheek big enough to stick a finger through, he's missing four teeth, he's covered with spit blood and vomit, and without ID or any idea where the airplane he finds himself on is heading. It turns out his parents have sent him to a drug rehab center in Minnesota. From the start, Frey refuses to surrender his problem to a 12-step program or to victimize himself by calling his addictions a disease. He demands to be held fully accountable for the person he is and the person he may become. If Frey is a victim, he comes to realize, it's due to nothing but his own bad decisions. Wyman's reading of Frey's terse, raw prose is ideal. His unforgettable performance of Frey's anesthesia-free dental visit will be recalled by listeners with every future dentist appointment. His lump-in-the-throat contained intensity, wherein he neither sobs nor howls with rage but appears a breath away from both, gives listeners a palpable glimpse of the power of addiction and the struggle for recovery. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Forecasts, Mar. 10). (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Frey wakes up on an airplane with four broken teeth, a broken nose, a massive cut on his cheek, and unsure where he is or where he's going. Where he ends up is a residential treatment center based in Minnesota. This is the story of his experiences in that center as an addict and alcoholic. Listeners will meet the residents, including some who helped Frey continue his treatment and his work toward sobriety. The author's tale is brutal and honest, providing a realistic view of the life of an addict, something not for the faint of heart. It's full of profanity and graphic depictions of violence and drug use. In fact, Frey's description of the repair of his teeth without painkillers or anesthesia may keep people from ever going to the dentist again. That said, this presentation, read by Oliver Wyman, is an important addition for all library collections. Organizations that provide support for substance abusers, counseling centers, and prison libraries also should consider purchase.-Danna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal