Postscript, 19 months later: Talese, Oprah and Frey

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During a Dallas-area writers’ conference over the weekend, Nan Talese, the publisher of James Frey’s ‘A Million Little Pieces,’ was asked about the ordeal involving Frey’s book during one of the sessions. Talese didn’t hesitate to respond, lamenting the way that she and Frey were treated when they appeared on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,’ saying the host has ‘fiercely bad manners.’ The media are buzzing with her comments: ‘You don’t stone someone in public,’ Talese also said of the way Winfrey grilled them.

You may recall that when Talese appeared with Frey on ‘Oprah’ in January 2006, she appeared calm and even somewhat sympathetic to the host’s distress. At the time, she called the entire mess over Frey’s fabrication of events in his memoir a ‘very sad’ affair; she also tried to explain to Winfrey and millions of TV viewers her firm belief in trust between editors and writers when it comes to the facts. Winfrey would have none of it, but Talese was guarded in the face of the talk show diva’s fury. Not anymore. You can find her comments around the Web. The gossip site Gawker finds that Talese’s continued support for Frey’s memoir is completely wrong, but she does receive points for standing up to Winfrey’s self-righteous attitude and--a silly way to end their post--for having ‘those great teeth.’

Time magazine online suggests that Talese was well-prepared--even expecting--to make comments directed against Winfrey during the conference. At one moment, she ‘pointedly turned toward the C-SPAN crew that was filming the event’ and the rest of us may get a chance to view her remarks on C-SPAN’s Book TV by this weekend.
Nick Owchar