BARGAINING!

3 Reviews=Bargaining -- Bright Shiny Morning - James Frey

I know, I know -- this is the author who pulled a scam on Oprah! Oh well, people blunder sometimes -- I thought I would give him a chance. (Frey, I figured, must be capable of writing if he caught Oprah's attention -- after all she did like Anne Marie MacDonald.)

In this novel -- and he does call it a novel and not an autobiography, he writes about Los Angeles and a few recurring characters.

I say that he writes about Los Angeles because I get the feeling that he did considerable research and felt the need to include ALL that information in this so-called novel. It begins innocuously enough. Between chapters, he has a brief non-fiction paragraphs set apart on an individual page. At first, I thought these paragraphs were relevant and read them attentively. Then, I realized that although they were semi-interesting, they were ultimately unimportant as far as the story was concerned.

Unfortunately, Frey did not confine his need to incorporate his research into his novel with these "between chapter factoid pages" and instead began incorporating longer interruptions into the narrative. One of first significant interruptions occurs during the story of Larry and his love of guns. This interruption is a list (in this case, a fictitious list): "A sampling of customers at Larry's firearms on an average day", which while I was reading I did not find too intrusive.

Nonetheless, Frey really started to tick me off when on p. 135 he began rambling on and on and on about "Freeways! Highways! EXPRESSWAYS!! AN EIGHTEEN-RAMP INTERSTATE EXCHANGE!!!" This "interruption" as I like to call them lasted for -- wait for it -- ELEVEN pages!! Unbelieveable, but true. Relevance to the story -- NONE!

Another "interruption" which drew my attention -- if not my frustration -- occurred when he starts going on about gangs -- for a total of TWELVE pages! Immediately followed by another TWELVE pages about people who went to Los Angeles to make it big -- and who were totally, once again, irrelevant to the plot. A few pages later, he turns his research into "Fun Facts Los Angeles, Volume 1" which lasts THREE pages, followed a bit later by Volumes 2 which lasts TWO pages. Then, back to people arriving in LA, this time immigrants from all over the world, and others who arrive to live and study, lasting for THIRTEEN pages. Further on, there are SIX pages listing the natural disasters which have pounded LA and incurred considerable cost as a consequence. Stories of artists -- another TWELVE page "interruption" followed by SEVEN pages about War Vets who have been involved in the 20th and 21st century wars, and then FIFTEEN pages about another couple of kids who went to LA to make their dreams come true. As I said, PAGE AFTER PAGE of irrelevant information repeatedly INTERRUPTING the story. I guess, some people might like this kind of thing, but I found it pretty disjointed and just plain irritating.

The novel's "plot" is actually made up of several individual stories which again, are not related to each other except by their common setting. The plots could have been interesting but I found them hard to follow because they were interwoven and also there were so many "interruptions" that I would forget what had happened in the previous section. I think that these should have been written as short stories and compiled in an anthology rather than trying to make a book. Of course, I suspect that it would not have sold as well, as short story anthologies are purchased less often than novels.

So what do I think about this book. Well, it will be the last James Frey I read -- unless, for some reason, I join a reading challenge specifically targeting bad writing and self-inflicted pain and suffering.

Like James Patterson's Double Cross -- this gets a ZERO CRITICAL MONKEY RATING!