Oprah Shamed James Frey. He’s Back Anyway.

Style|Oprah Shamed Him. He’s Back Anyway.

James Frey was, for a time, one of the most famous nonfiction writers in America. And then someone checked the facts.

In 2005, Oprah Winfrey selected his memoir “A Million Little Pieces” for her book club, only to learn soon after that he had fabricated parts of his story about drug addiction and his time in rehab. She shamed Frey on national TV for betraying the American public, and his publisher offered refunds. He was branded a villain, a fraud — and became perhaps the first canceled man this century.

“Did I lie? Yup,” he told me. “Did I also write a book that tore people to shreds? Yeah.”

Today, lies are told with gusto, while facts are distorted and erased at the speed of tapping thumbs. Just scroll on X for a bit, and the Frey affair might look like a horse and buggy that was ticketed for trotting too fast.

As Frey sees it, the public has gotten increasingly comfortable with falsehoods, without getting fully comfortable with him. He finds it all a bit absurd. “I just sit in my castle and giggle,” he said.

This month, he attempts a comeback of sorts: He’s publishing a novel that centers on a swingers party and a murder. It features energetic sex scenes, rich-people shenanigans and eccentric punctuation. (Frey believes quotation marks are inauthentic.)

He’s hoping that his past fabrications, seen in the contemporary glare of the iPhone light, might not look quite as offensive as they once did. After all, the public has lately reconsidered former outcasts for far worse.