James Frey Returns, Like It or Not

James Frey regrets nothing. In an interview with Vanity Fair to promote his new novel, Bright Shiny Morning, the author discusses the 2006 controversy regarding his "memoir," A Million Little Pieces, and how he was vilified by the media and humiliated by Oprah Winfrey. "I've said all along that I never wanted my books published as memoirs," he tells the magazine.

Frey insists that he always referred to the story as a novel, but his agent pushed it as a true story, which was what made publishers interested. Now, after the scandal, standards for similar accounts have changed, as has public perception of them. "The enduring myth of the American memoir as a precise form is bullshit and needed to go away," says Frey. (More James Frey stories.)