This, after running down a squadron of nuns while on a cocaine-fueled rampage in a stolen Porche. After I beat the owner’s head in with a crowbar. After I spent all year defrauding him and his wife online in a phony stock deal.


It’s all true.


Got your attention, didn’t I?


That’s the point. Welcome to the world of Embellished Writing.


If you’ve read James Frey’s bestselling “A Million Little Pieces,” you know what I am talking about. A searing account of substance abuse and rehabilitation, the book spares no details of blood, vomit, vile hangovers, death and near-death.


Riveting stuff. Endorsed by Oprah, no less. Except, it turns out, portions of it might not be true.


Which is a shame, because “Pieces” is a rather good read. And this Frey fellow is making megabucks, probably more so since the whiff of scandal came wafting through the nation’s bookstores. As they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.


What bugs me, though, is that I can’t get away with embellishing my writing, because we have rules about truth and accuracy and all that stuff. Darn.


I mean, what if I covered a borough council meeting for the newspaper and led off with “No shots were fired at Thursday’s borough council meeting” or “Borough council president Jones, wrestling the darkest inner demons of his soul, stayed his hand from killing and tabled a resolution on downtown parking Thursday.”


Well, OK, it does make for more interesting reading, doesn’t it? Sort of like the old journalism joke about asking someone if he is still beating his wife and when he asks “what are you talking about?” you run the headline “DENIES BEATING WIFE.”


Think of the possibilities.


“Mary Smith, head of the hospital’s blood drive, is worried that supplies are getting low, and is urging people to donate” becomes “Mary Smith has a need. A desperate need. An all-consuming need that gnaws at her heart. Mary Smith needs blood. Human blood. Needs. Human. Blood.”


Or, “Girl Scout Troop 86 will begin its annual door-to-door cookie sale this week” turns up on the page as “You think you can be alone in your own private hell, but they won’t let you. They want. They want. Want. And they won’t leave, despite your screams.”


Ridiculous, no? Then again, ratcheting up the thrill factor in writing is just part of our whole “extreme” mentality, which can’t leave well enough alone. James Frey had a dramatic enough story to tell. But, no, he allegedly had to “supersize” details. A movie can’t be a movie anymore; it has to be a three-hour epic. And of course, there’s the ne plus ultra of embellished bloat, Super Bowl Sunday. If there is, indeed, a Second Coming of Jesus some day, it had better be choreographed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, because just showing up isn’t going to cut it.


Speaking of, what if someone like James Frey wrote the Bible? I can just imagine, but I have another Porche to steal.




Stephen Kopfinger is a Sunday News staff writer. Contact him at skopfinger@lnpnews or at 291-8799.
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