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A Million Little Pieces | 
 enlarge | Author: James Frey
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
(as of 9/9/10 11:03 PDT - Details)
New (217) Used (3249) Collectible (17) from $0.01
Rating:  1855 reviews
Sales Rank: 4675
Media: Paperback
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307276902
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.29092
EAN: 9780307276902
ASIN: 0307276902
Publication Date: September 22, 2005
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780307276902 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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Product Description
paperback, good condition tight binding and clean pages, cover shows minimal wear but spine has a tilt so top pages are further out than back cover
Amazon.com Review
From Doubleday & Anchor Books
The controversy over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn’t matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them. It is, however, Doubleday and Anchor's policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper. A publisher's relationship with an author is based to an extent on trust. Mr. Frey's repeated representations of the book's accuracy, throughout publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections. When the Smoking Gun report appeared, our first response, given that we were still learning the facts of the matter, was to support our author. Since then, we have questioned him about the allegations and have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished. We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of A Million Little Pieces.
Note: The following editorial reviews were written before the above revelations by James Frey and the publisher.
Amazon.com
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
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1855
 Brutally Honest October 21, 2005
Drama Queen (Alaska)
28 out of 31 found this review helpful
My brother just committed suicide partially because of or maybe entirely because of alcohol addiction. In the airport on the way home from the memorial for him, I found this book. I read half of it on the plane - hoping for answers. I found a few in Mr. Frey's vivid descriptions of the helpless, hopeless, endlessly disappointing battles with addictions. It is a bittersweet explanation to me of what my beautiful brother must have been dealing with. Over and over again he redeemed himself but in the end he must have seen no way out and so he ended the addiction and his shame and disappointment in the most logical way he could think of. I don't know how his story could have been any different and reading this book makes me realize how hard he must have fought and none of us in the family ever knew.
As to the mechanics of the writing, it's visceral and eloquent and blunt and meaningful and angry and defiant. A masterpiece of truth telling. I hope that families of folks with addictions will read it and take some solace or at least a glimmer of what their beloved addicts life must be like. And finally, it is a piece of hope that some others may have the good fortune to make it back from the abyss.
This book helped me accept my brother for what he was and what he did.
Thanks, Mr. Frey. I hope that if this is your true story that you continue to win the battle. Life without my brother, addicted though he was, is really unbearable. Life without you, I would imagine, would be unbearable for all of us because of your eloquent sharing of your experience.
Thanks for being so brutally honest. Your efforts have helped me understand my brother a little better and the choice he made at the end.
I recommend this book to anyone whose life has been touched by the losing someone to addiction and to anyone looking for satisfying, beautiful, honest, gifted storytelling. If you do not have anyone like this in your life, it's still a great book, passionate and honest with a grim humor that makes it bearable to read the truth of an addicts life.
It Will Tie Your Stomach in Knots March 21, 2004
26 out of 29 found this review helpful
Kelly Krisler, a graduate student,
Simply put, I really liked "A Million Little Pieces." I agree with the review comparisons to "Nightmares Echo," "Running With Scissors," and of course "My Fractured Life." I also would include "Less Than Zero" among the favorable comparisons. Although a fiction novel in comparison to "A Million Little Pieces" being a memoir, "Less Than Zero" deals with the same situations of poor little rich boy becoming an addict not because of life on the mean streets, but simply because he has the money to waste. In terms of impact though, it is hard to top "Nightmares Echo" or "Basketball Diaries." Whereas, it in terms of an addictive reading experience it is hard to top "My Fractured Life" and "Running With Scissors". In all cases, "A Million Little Pieces" deserving belongs among all the aforementioned. It is graphic and impacting and at the same time addictive to read. A gripping journey that will put knots in your stomach.
Worth Every Penny June 17, 2005
Jc Schabort
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
"A Million Little Pieces" is told with brutal, in your face honesty and an almost hyper active writing style. I found it to be absolutely brilliant. This is the story of an addict by an addict and doesn't try to paint it as anything saintly or appologetic. I was very pleased with this purchase and do not hesitate to recommend "A Million Little Pieces" to other readers. I also recommend "My Fractured Life", "The Glass Castle", "Running With Scissors", "Dry", and "Smashed."
As a member of the "recovery community"... December 8, 2003
Tal (Catonsville, MD USA)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
...I found this book compelling. There were passages where my heart started to race and I found myself trying to read faster because the experiences described felt so true. I underlined lines that put my own experience into words better than I ever have. I am a member of a 12 Step fellowship but do not believe it is the ONLY way to recover from addiction; Frey's struggle with the idea of a Higher Power closely mirrors my own. Though our "core issues" (Frey's is "the Fury"; mine is depression) and our paths differ, our experiences of addiction are the same. I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone who wants a better understanding of why we do what we do and how it feels to stop.
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I need to amend my review of this book in light of The Smoking Gun's expose. Because I gave it an emphatic five stars, I am obligated to acknowledge this new information.
I certainly don't know how much of what he wrote he actually experienced. The fact remains that his description of addiction and recovery therefrom - the feelings he described - rang true for me. Whether the book is fact, fiction, or some combination of the two, he nailed what I went through. I would still offer this book to someone wanting to understand what it is like to be an addict. I may also tell them to take the rest of it with some little pieces of salt.
The Best Memoir Ever September 22, 2005
Mike Smith (Albuquerque, NM)
120 out of 153 found this review helpful
This book is undoubtedly not only the best memoir I've ever read, it's also one of the best books I've ever read, period. The writing style is gorgeous, immediate, and unique, but the subject matter is unbelievable. The writer's life--of drugs and crime and violence and sadness--is almost too much to bear at times, as is the suspense of knowing that any moment he might return to all of it. (The story is about him being in rehab...but this is no "28 Days." This is relentless.) I still worry about him after reading it, and after reading its sequel, "My Friend Leonard," which is also great, but sadder.
At times reading this book is a lot like being beaten up, but even in some of the book's harshest moments, there are little moments of kindness and friendship that are so touching, that I'd start to hope again, and my heart would melt.
This book is full of sex and violence and drugs and explicit language, yet I would recommend it to every high school and college student out there, just to remind them of the danger of drugs. And I would recommend it to everyone else, just because it is an amazing book. My brother was so moved by it, he named an album after it. Kudos to Oprah for choosing it for her club; I almost can't believe it--I thought she was into Steinbeck and "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and that kind of stuff.
Read this book, read its sequel, and read everything James Frey ever writes. He is a literary genius, he's alive today, and I couldn't be more grateful.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1855
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