Not fiction, not nonfiction...

For many Oprah Winfrey fans, James Frey may be the anti-Christ. He is, after all, one of the few people in the world who can say they have successfully, and very publicly, duped Oprah.

A Million Little Pieces is Frey's hybrid fiction/nonfiction memoir detailing his youth as an alcoholic and drug addict who had frequent brushes with the law. A 2006 Smoking Gun special report showed that Frey had indeed fabricated and embellished parts of his drug abuse and criminal convictions for the book. In 2005, Winfrey selected the book as an "Oprah's Book Club" book, which authors can fairly adequate to hitting the lottery. Millions of dedicated Oprah viewers flock to their local Borders, Barnes & Noble or other book warehouse to buy it the day after it's announced as a selection.

Combine Oprah's Book Club with a little controversy, and you have quite the recipe for success.

As an aspiring journalist, I personally believe that publications that claim to be nonfiction--as A Million Little Pieces was purported to be--should indeed be nonfiction. However, I freely admit that I had absolutely no interest in reading Frey's book until well after these allegations surfaced, after Doubleday, the book's publisher, included a disclaimer in the front of the book calling out the fact that the truthfulness of some of the book's details were in question.

Of course, the backlash that followed was warranted. After all, Frey did lie to millions of people and he should be held accountable. He came back to the Oprah Winfrey show for a public scolding from Winfrey herself, and the spectacle was repeated throughout the following days on cable news shows and national network newscasts. Not only was Frey a former alcoholic, drug addict and criminal, but he was also now known as a first-rate liar.

Is that punishment enough? Frey still gets to keep all of the money earned from the contract he signed with A Million Little Pieces' publisher, and here we are, two years later, still talking about him.