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31 Rutgers L. Rec. 1 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/rutglr31 and id is 1 raw text is: RUTGERS LAW RECORD Volume 31 Spring 2007 Number 1 TRUTHINESS: LAW, LITERATURE & THE PROBLEM WITH MEMOIRS By Jessica Lewis* I. INTRODUCTION Truthiness is the quality of adhering to concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.' Comedian Stephen Colbert introduced the term on October 17, 2005, during the inaugural episode of The Colbert Report, itself a blurring of news and satire. As the inception of truthiness coincided with the scandal surrounding James Frey's so-called 2 memoir, A Million Little Pieces, the term has previously been applied to the issues addressed -3 herein. In this Note, I explore the legal and literary impact of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, analyzing memoir through the lens of truthiness. First, I sketch a brief literary history of autobiography and memoir, from the genre's first examples through its most recent developments. Second, I consider the role of the law in literary realms, examining lawsuits involving autobiographies and/or memoirs. Third, I analyze the James Frey debacle, highlighting the circumstances that culminated in the first customer refund issued by a * J.D. Candidate, May 2007, Rutgers University School of Law - Newark. 'See http://www.americandialect.org/Words-of the-Year 2005.pdf; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness. 2 JAMES FREY, A MRLION LITTLE PIECES (Anchor Books/Random House, Inc. 2003)(hereinafter AMLP). ' See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness (noting that Oprah Winfrey mentioned truthiness in her second segment with James Frey, following the revelation that his memoir was fictionalized). 1