Throughout the novel, Frey speaks of the "Fury" he is fighting, which he sees as the cause of his desire to drink alcohol and use other drugs. The book follows Frey through the painful experiences that lead up to his eventual release from the center, including his participation in the clinic's family program with his brother, despite his strong desire not to. He copes with the pain by squeezing tennis balls until his nails crack.
A million little pieces book series#
As part of this, he is forced to undergo a series of painful root canals, without any anesthesia because of possible negative reactions to the drugs. He is also wanted by the police in three states on several charges.Īs he checks into the rehab clinic, he is forced to quit his substance abuse, a transition that later probably saves his life, whilst also an agonizing process.
A million little pieces book crack#
It is revealed that James is 23 years old, and has been an alcoholic for ten years, and a crack addict for three. He is met by his brother at the airport, who takes him to a rehabilitation clinic. It tells the story of a 23-year-old alcoholic and abuser of other drugs and how he copes with rehabilitation in a twelve steps-oriented treatment center.Ī badly tattered James wakes up on a commercial flight to Chicago, with injuries that he has no recollection of having sustained or of how he ended up on the plane. ( From the publisher.A Million Little Pieces is a book by James Frey, originally sold as a memoir and later marketed as a semi-fictional novel following Frey's admission that many parts of the book were fabricated. In writing that jumps off the page with all the rawness and immediacy of life, A Million Little Pieces is an unforgettable act of self-witnessing and a terrifying account of what the human spirit can destroy, endure, and overcome. A recipe for failure, his counselors tell him, but a risk he decides he has to take. He will stay sober not by attending AA meetings in church basements, or praying to a god he can't believe in, but by deciding not to act on his addictions. And he insists, in a gesture either heroic or just plain stubborn, that whatever the sources of his addictions might be, he will place the responsibility for his life and its disasters, the pain he's caused himself and others, squarely on his own shoulders. In them he finds reasons to try to heal himself. But he meets a fellow patient, Leonard, who will not give up on him, his brother gives him a copy of the Tao Te Ching, which speaks to him more profoundly than anything he reads in the AA literature, and he falls in love with Lilly, a beautiful and doomed crack addict.
That he completely rejects the clinic's Twelve Steps program makes his recovery seem even less likely. Balancing on the razor's edge between hope and despair, Frey describes the writhing delusions of withdrawal, the constant need of addictions screaming to be fed, and the blinding Fury that overtakes him and makes him want to run. His ordeal inside the clinic is hardly less harrowing. A few more drinks, the doctors tell him, will kill him. He is wanted in three states for crimes ranging from DUI and resisting arrest to assaulting an officer, attempted incitement of a riot, and felony mayhem. His body is shot, and his mind is in an almost constant rage of self-hatred and destructiveness. He took everything he could find, and as much as possible: Cocaine, crack cocaine, crystal meth, PCP, glue, and alcohol in quantities so great he blacked out every day for years. When he arrives at a famous clinic in Minnesota, he is nearly dead from a decade of drug and alcohol abuse so spectacular even doctors who have spent their entire careers treating addicts are amazed. It was revealed that parts of his "memoir" were fabricated.Ī Million Little Pieces is James Frey's scorching account of his descent into the hell of addiction and the brutal journey to recovery. In 2006, this book and its author became the subject of a highly publicized controversy-after Oprah had selected it as one of her books.
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