First Augusten Burroughs, now this.

Memoirs don’t have to be to-the-letter perfect accounts of someone’s past. If that were possible, the only good memoir writers would have photographic memories. They would have to remember the dialogue in every single conversation they have ever had. They would also have to remember details about the people whose lives have become intertwined with theirs. After all, if Aunt Jane wore a red hat to church every Sunday, but you remembered it as purple, then you’d be doing a disservice to Aunt Jane, wouldn’t you?

No, not really, but The Smoking Gun would like to think so.

What TSG seems to have missed in all of this is that James Frey is a memoir writer, not a journalist. As more than one writing teacher of mine has said, creative non-fiction is 95% truth and 5% fiction. It’s an art form, not a form of reporting.

I suppose the only literary crime James Frey has committed is not stating the literary definition of a memoir. Perhaps he could have done that in his foreword to spell it out plainly for gotcha-happy people like the folks at TSG.

He can also be blamed, I guess, for becoming too famous and too rich too fast. Blame Oprah for having an out-of-control iconic status among millions of sheep who flock to her to tell them what’s good — to read, buy, see, watch, listen to, eat, drink, poop in — but don’t blame Frey. He was just trying to get a book published.

For some reason I ended up watching ABC News with Peter Jennings last night. I don’t know why. Anyway, Mr. Jennings revealed the shocking truth behind the Harry Potter series: it encourages kids to read, thus giving them headaches (a doctor at GW University named them ‘Hogwart’s Headaches.’) Fascinating. So kids are reading too much and we might want to put a stop to that. If they read too much, they might actually reach the level of proficiency needed to make it in the 21st century, and as an added bonus might even become life-long readers. We wouldn’t want that!

This ‘news’ story sickened me almost as much as those commercials for the Saving Jessica Lynch made-for-TV-movie. I ask, who watches this crap? (Although I’m definitely tuning in for the Elizabeth Smart story on CBS. Haha, I’m kidding!)