I just finished A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey.

pieces cover

The book tells the author’s story of his six weeks in a rehab facility in Minnesota to overcome addictions to alcohol and just about every drug you can think of. As mentioned on the back cover, the book opens with the author waking up on an airplane with his four front teeth missing, his nose broken, and a hole in his cheek, with no idea how he got on the plane, where it’s going, or what he’d been doing for the past couple of weeks. I’ve had my share of blackouts and mystery bruises, but this was a doozy.

As the author begins to tell his story, through a recounting of his daily activities with a sprinkling of flashbacks thrown in, neither he nor his story is particularly endearing. He writes with a very stream-of-consciousness style (reminiscent of the writers of the beat generation), I suppose to reflect the disorganized state of his mind and the lack of control he has over himself, and he doesn’t follow many standard conventions of English prose (for example, I don’t think a single quotation mark appears anywhere in the book), and he often repeats himself. The adjustment to this writing style, as well as the realization early in the book that he is pretty obnoxious, presents a hurdle to wanting to continue with the book, and certainly with respect to “rooting” for our author.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, and I can’t really understand how it happened, but at some point prior to my saying “I’ve had it — this writing is hard to follow and I don’t even like this guy — I quit”, I found myself wrapped up in this one. Frey somehow managed to bring me over to his side and make me want to read the rest of his story (and hope for a happy ending). There are some downright heartbreaking stories about some of the people who populate this rehab facility, and at some point, you realize how heartbreaking Frey’s life has been — despite your inability to place blame for what he’s gone through on anyone but himself. And you root for him. And when you get close to the end, you’ve forgiven him for everything he’s done, even after he hits you with some stuff that he hadn’t shared earlier in the book and that you wouldn’t think you would ever forgive someone for.

Strangely enough, this was a former selection in Oprah’s Book Club. I have no idea why. Not that I’m intimately familiar with said Book Club, and not that I have anything against Ms. Winfrey (who I admire as much as the next guy), but this just doesn’t seem like her bag. I guess because it’s a story of struggle and redemption, it came up when she was Googling around looking for her next selection, using those search terms. And I think she picked a winner.