Smoking Gun victim, urgh, writer James Frey has written a new book called Bright Shiny Morning. You may remember Frey as the writer who faked two memoirs and faced a public flogging by Oprah Winfrey on national television.Full disclosure: I haven't read the book. But AAPW senior staff writer was keen to point out two reviews, one by the Los Angeles Times and one the New York Times.
David L. Ulin, the LA Times Book Page Editor, hated it. Janet Maslin, a NY Times reviewer, loved it. Huh?
Well, I read both reviews and am inclined towards Ulin. Ulin is a die-hard LA transplant and has over the years made an earnest effort to know and love Los Angeles on its own terms. God knows this region is one of the most beat up, reputation-wise, in the country if not the world.
Maslin seemed to be reading the book in a void or vacuum of realism: There is no Los Angeles. Diversity is static here. Brown people are unactualized. As usual.
Kudos to Ulin for being such a keen reader and pushing his criticism and thus the way we read contemporary literature (with contemporary ideas) and Los Angeles (a much more complicated place than its given credit for).
