If there is a line to get into hell the man standing at the front is author and habitual literary-prevaricator James Frey. Frey, one of those writers who in their misguided youth got hooked on drugs, stole things, got in fights, went to jail and then wrote an autobiography about it. His was titled, “A Million Little Pieces.” Problem is, most of his story was made up and Oprah’s book club busted him for it.
Meet James Frey
What’s a shameless author to do to get back into the good graces of the New York literary world while hoping to conjure up a Hollywood movie deal? Offer a sacrifice to their godless imagination in the form of a new novel entitled, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, staring Jesus, an alcoholic bachelor who sleeps with prostitutes and marries gay couples. The other gimmick placed atop Mr. Frey’s inane offering is a limited U.S. print run of 10,000 slip-cased leatherette copies, as well as 1,000 collector’s editions signed and numbered by the author.
Mr. Frey said in a 2008 interview the book is his “idea of what the Messiah would be like if he were walking the streets of New York today.” His Jesus — or Ben Jones — is apparently a drunk who impregnates a prostitute, smokes pot and fools around with men. “It doesn’t matter how or who you love. I don’t believe the messiah would condemn gay men and women,” Frey said. Judas, meanwhile, would be the “same as he was two thousand years ago”, a “selfish man who thinks of himself before the good of humanity, who values money more than love.”
A writer should only write about what he knows; yet Mr. Frey clearly sees himself as the Messiah in the spinning of his yarn. Though upon a closer examination of the author’s choices in life, and the release of this gimmicky offensive novel, exposes Mr. Frey as being more in the vain of Judas, a “selfish man who thinks of himself before the good of humanity, who values money more than love.”
Only those shrouded in the pop-culture-ruling-class applaud artist as groundbreaking when they pee on Jesus, paint him with elephant dung or depict him in a novel as a typical liberal living in the West Village. However, those who have more respect for people’s faith simply find this sort of art cowardly and uninspired, created by artists who see the media spotlight as their ticket to a worldly heaven.
At some point in a writer’s life one must decide whether he’s hanging on the cross for his work, or pounding in the nails. With Mr. Frey’s latest book, he’s clearly chosen a nail gun and aimed it at Christians. It’s not even a brave literary choice. If Mr. Frey really wanted to be edgy and expose a burden in today’s society, he would have written a novel about Muhammad the cab driver in a post 9/11 New York seeking peace by contemplating a conversion to Christianity.
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