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A true book. Suffered. Shameless. Hard. Violent. Moving. A book that leaves a mark, a deep wound, a piercing scream. A desperate cry for help, launched with the heart in the throat and the liver wrecked. James Frey magnificently paints the Hell of detoxification from alcohol and drugs, and definitely hits the mark. A hammer that drills through layers of hypocrisy and lies, penetrates through society's indifference toward fragile, disconnected subjects, retired ex-gangsters, desperate husbands, and absent mothers.
I will spend few words on the heated debate about the truthfulness of this work, released in America as a shocking autobiography then unmasked and shelved as "fiction". Here it's not about reality or fiction. James Frey knows how to write, and he writes well. A rhythm constantly at the edge of breathlessness, as if in constant search of something indefinable and unreachable for an "Alcoholic, Addict, and Criminal". Within the unreal atmosphere of a rehabilitation center in Minnesota, James for the first time in his life will have to face himself, that self who for years has only rowed in the direction of a planned yet desired self-destruction. Assisted by borderline characters, entities now almost shadows of themselves, elves with a past of prostitution behind, James will embark on his most important and painful journey, without the aid of drugs and deadly cocktails. A long journey within the narrow walls of a conscience tainted by years of furious dependency. The blind Fury that the author speaks of so much in the midst of his faded memories. Too distant, lost in a world that seems to belong to a Universe light-years away from the bright and annoying neon lights of the recovery center, the coffees in front of the football game and the invigorating showers in the early morning, after having vomited blood and soul as it has happened to him daily for years.
Like it or not, this reality exists too. Not all tales have a happy ending, we must accept it. For every one who succeeds, a hundred fail. Frey does not play the moralist nor does he pose as a victim of the system or something even greater than the system. Like many in his condition, he rejects the stereotypical paths proposed by the clinic's therapists, imposes his will against everyone else's, even knowing the great risk he might encounter: facing barehanded the beast that devours his body daily. And the claustrophobic writing with which he recounts his experience is a warning and a lesson to be memorized. Whether one is an alcoholic or not, it does not matter. The feeling of anxiety that one will experience in wanting to know what lies behind such a problematic person and what awaits in his next destiny will not abandon us until the last page, the last line, the last word of his epic. Crudely, but very proudly, James Frey is a hero of modern times.
If you read it as a simple raw testimony of lived life, it will break your heart in two. If you read it as a tale of fantasy, invented and false, it will be a painful and wonderful experience.
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