In my head
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 4:27 PM
A Million Little Pieces My Friend Leonard
Both of these books are written by the same author.
Ever since I finished these books I knew I loved them. Something about them.
In this blog I plan to eleborate why.
It came to me today while I was reading Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller.
I was sitting on my deck trying to get into the book. But I just couldnt.
And I thought to myself, I cant get into this book, because this guy is normal.
He writes with no voice, no passion or heart. He just writes, because he's a writer.
I find writers to be the worst writers.
James Frey.
I suppose you could consider him an author.
He has wrote two books.
But they werent fiction books, they werent self help books. They were his life.
They dont say anything in them, except for the story of his life.
line
after
line
just
like this.
The first book, A Million Little Pieces, is about James. He wakes up on a plane, with a hole in his cheek and mouth, and his front four teeth missing. He knows two things about himself. He is an alcoholic, and he is a drug addict. His parents check him into a drug treatment center, and James stays. The story is about him [a not very happy him] going through a couple months of treatment. While he's there he smokes and he cusses and he meets a girl. Thats about all he does is smoke and cuss and meet Lily. At drug treatment you have to go through the 12 steps of AA. The 12 steps are supposed to help keep you sober, and are supposedly the only thing that has ever "worked" after treatment. James does not believe in God, he thinks the steps are stupid, he goes through a couple months of treatment without doing them. His plan to stay sober is "choosing not to." To any drug addict this sounds crazy, it sounded crazy to me. The first thing James does when he gets out of treatment is he goes to a bar, orders a full bottle of liqour, and smells it. He pays for it, and leaves.
The second book James is in jail for a breif portion of the book, to compensate for previous offenses. He goes to Chicago to see Lily, they fell in love, and have planned a life together. He gets there and she is already dead, she killed herself. James starts to make a life for himself in Chicago with the help of his friend Leonard who is head of anything with money in America. [seriously, he is mob boss, but you would never know it other than the money] he met Leonard in treatment, and Leonard calls him his son. It goes through a couple years of James doing various things, working, falling in love a couple times, moving to L.A., trying to make a carreer. Eventually Leonard dies of AIDs.
These books have been very important to me because they are so real. there is nothing easy, or exciting, or encouraging about recovering from addiction. It is hard, and it sucks, and you want to die. James makes this clear, and its something I would really like the general human race to understand. I enjoyed the second book because it is about him succeeding without the steps. He goes out to bars every night with his friends, has alcohol in his fridge, but simply chooses no.
James is not a normal person. Not to the average human.
He is rude and he has no manners, and he is poor. But he is normal to me.
What I love about drug addicts is nothing is not good enough.
No one is judged.
No one is looked at as "poor, tweeker, freak, grungy" they are just people.
They are nice to everyone regardless of what they look like. There is no hierarchy.
They dont see you they just hear you.
They've been there.
I enjoy reading James frey, not a writer, to Donald Miller, a writer.
Both of these books are written by the same author.
Ever since I finished these books I knew I loved them. Something about them.
In this blog I plan to eleborate why.
It came to me today while I was reading Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller.
I was sitting on my deck trying to get into the book. But I just couldnt.
And I thought to myself, I cant get into this book, because this guy is normal.
He writes with no voice, no passion or heart. He just writes, because he's a writer.
I find writers to be the worst writers.
James Frey.
I suppose you could consider him an author.
He has wrote two books.
But they werent fiction books, they werent self help books. They were his life.
They dont say anything in them, except for the story of his life.
line
after
line
just
like this.
The first book, A Million Little Pieces, is about James. He wakes up on a plane, with a hole in his cheek and mouth, and his front four teeth missing. He knows two things about himself. He is an alcoholic, and he is a drug addict. His parents check him into a drug treatment center, and James stays. The story is about him [a not very happy him] going through a couple months of treatment. While he's there he smokes and he cusses and he meets a girl. Thats about all he does is smoke and cuss and meet Lily. At drug treatment you have to go through the 12 steps of AA. The 12 steps are supposed to help keep you sober, and are supposedly the only thing that has ever "worked" after treatment. James does not believe in God, he thinks the steps are stupid, he goes through a couple months of treatment without doing them. His plan to stay sober is "choosing not to." To any drug addict this sounds crazy, it sounded crazy to me. The first thing James does when he gets out of treatment is he goes to a bar, orders a full bottle of liqour, and smells it. He pays for it, and leaves.
The second book James is in jail for a breif portion of the book, to compensate for previous offenses. He goes to Chicago to see Lily, they fell in love, and have planned a life together. He gets there and she is already dead, she killed herself. James starts to make a life for himself in Chicago with the help of his friend Leonard who is head of anything with money in America. [seriously, he is mob boss, but you would never know it other than the money] he met Leonard in treatment, and Leonard calls him his son. It goes through a couple years of James doing various things, working, falling in love a couple times, moving to L.A., trying to make a carreer. Eventually Leonard dies of AIDs.
These books have been very important to me because they are so real. there is nothing easy, or exciting, or encouraging about recovering from addiction. It is hard, and it sucks, and you want to die. James makes this clear, and its something I would really like the general human race to understand. I enjoyed the second book because it is about him succeeding without the steps. He goes out to bars every night with his friends, has alcohol in his fridge, but simply chooses no.
James is not a normal person. Not to the average human.
He is rude and he has no manners, and he is poor. But he is normal to me.
What I love about drug addicts is nothing is not good enough.
No one is judged.
No one is looked at as "poor, tweeker, freak, grungy" they are just people.
They are nice to everyone regardless of what they look like. There is no hierarchy.
They dont see you they just hear you.
They've been there.
I enjoy reading James frey, not a writer, to Donald Miller, a writer.