Bright Shiny Morning (Hardcover)

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From Publishers Weekly
SignatureReviewed by Sara NelsonWhen James Frey imploded as a memoirist in 2006, many said his A Million Little Pieces should have been—and perhaps initially was—presented as a novel, and that Frey—a sometimes screenwriter—was, both by nature and design, a fiction writer. Bright Shiny Morning is his first official book of fiction. If it's not quite a novel, less believable in its way than his augmented memoir ever was, there's no doubt it's a work of Frey's imagination. Ironic, isn't it?Set in contemporary Los Angeles, Bright Shiny Morning is not a cohesive narrative but a compilation of vignettes of several characters (if this were a memoir, we'd call them composites) who have come to the city to fulfill their dreams. Some examples: Dylan and Maddie, madly-in-love Midwestern runaways who survive through the kindness of near strangers; Esperanza, a Mexican-American maid tortured by a body that could have been drawn by R. Crumb; a group of drunks and junkies who create a community behind the shacks on Venice Beach; Amberton Parker, a hugely famous married movie star who is secretly—you guessed it—gay. Interspersed with these rotating portraits are random historical and statistical factoids (which better have been fact-checked, even if there is a nudge-nudge, wink-wink disclaimer up front: Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable) about L.A.: that, for example, approximately 2.7 million people live without health insurance and there are more than 12,000 people who describe their job as bill collector in the City of Los Angeles. Frey's intention, it seems, is to create an onomatopoetic jumble, a cacophony of facts and fiction, stats and stories, that replicate the contradictory nature of the place they describe. I expect, given the sharpness of the knives that some critics have out for Frey, that many will say the book flat out doesn't work. First off, there's that voice, the hyperbolic, breathless, run-on, word-repeating voice that was much better suited to a memoir (or even a novel) in which the hero was a hyperbolic, breathless alcoholic and drug addict. And then there's the frat-boy swagger that angered some readers of AMLP turning up here, too, so faux-cynical as to be naïve: the gang father's attaboy about his five-year-old son's desire to be a cold-blooded killer, and the prurient, adolescent take on sex. (And couldn't someone have stopped him from exclaiming woohoo after some of his fun and not fun factoids?) Yet the guy has something: an energy, a drive, a relentlessness, maybe, that can pull readers along, past the voice, past the stock characters, past the clichés. Bright Shiny Morning is a train wreck of a novel, but it's un-put-downable, a real page-turner—in what may come to be known as the Frey tradition. Sara Nelson is the editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker
Two years after Frey’s memoir "A Million Little Pieces" was outed as part fiction, the publicly chastised writer resurfaces with a novel much of which purports to be fact. Set in a Los Angeles populated by miniature-golf moguls, ex-beauty queens, gun-shop owners, debauched child actors, meth dealers, and yoginis in thongs, this gargantuan book is seeded, Melville-like, with chapters cataloguing the city’s snarled highways and quirky innovations (e.g., the world’s first video graveyard). The characters are relentlessly stock: two lovesick kids from the heartland ("nowhere anywhere everywhere"); a bulimic, closeted movie star with a "MEGAWATT!!!!!" smile; a Mexican-American maid with an abusive employer. Frey strives for incantatory but winds up with banal; when it comes to emotion, the best he can muster is "It’s deep, it’s true, and it’s real real real."
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
earthquake registers, paralyzed neck, other caddies Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Los Angeles, Iraq War, New York, Old Man Joe, Ugly Tom, Beverly Hills, United States, Santa Monica, Putt Putt Bonanza, Asshole Dan, Gulf War, Skid Row, African American, Little Tokyo, Amberton Parker, San Fernando Valley, San Francisco, Pacific Coast Highway, San Diego, Long Beach, Hollywood Boulevard, Owens Valley, Kevin Jackson, Venice Beach, West Coast Browse Sample Pages:
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152 Reviews 5 star:  (75) 4 star:  (30) 3 star:  (13) 2 star:  (18) 1 star:  (16)           Average Customer Review 3.9 out of 5 stars (152 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   203 of 232 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars My Hope, May 13, 2008 By  C. Oliver (Worcester, MASSACHUSETTS United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)       I was the first to get the book from my local Barnes and Nobles and I know this because they told me this--I read a lot. I read Austen and Bronte. I read Hemingway and Faulkner. I read Mailer and Vidal. I read I read I read. You'll have to trust me when I say that I consider myself a literate person, a published writer, and a harsh and unbearable critic--of self and others--and I haven't read all of Bright Shiny Morning yet. I have read four hundred and ten pages of it. With the negative reviews that are to follow, I figured a partial review on my favorite place to buy books online would be appropriate to thin out what will surely be many an unjust review. Let's put aside that he's an embellisher in his memoirs (I could care less). Let's focus solely on the novel at hand. Let's start with the negatives. Two Teens runaway from home to start a life together. (Cliche) A blockbuster actor married to a beautiful woman is really gay. (Cliche) A spanish nanny with a deformity who starts a relationships with the son of a client. (Cliche) A homeless man who befriends a runaway. (Most assuredly cliche) The writing is shoddily punctuated, annoyingly incomplete, and choppy. (You look and have to make sure you read it right). The language is rough. (Constant swearing, difficult to read material) The vignette excursions are sometimes annoying, sometimes interesting, sometimes boring, sometimes a miss, and sometimes a hit. (Some worked in the book, other's probably could've been left out). Now I'll tell you why none of these negatives matter. The cliche story lines could kill a book if not so beautifully put together that you become engrossed in the characters--the characters become the originals in a story that's been told a thousand times. The writing is all his own. It's reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It flares with an immediacy not seen in books anymore--or rarely seen in books anymore. The excursions from the story are necessary because without them, you don't get the major character, which is, LA. LA rings as the focal character, a land and place all its own that rings true to the world around us, the focal point for the American dream, the focal point for hope and decadance, the focal point for stardom and fame, the focal point for what drives American's home lives to the television each day, the focal point for these characters existence, the focal point for life in a sense. I ask, and I hope, my only hope, that you who are angry at James Frey, let it go, and don't try and crush the book simply because you feel lied to. A believable lie, after all, is what good fiction is made out of, for if he could suspend disbelief well enough for us to believe everything in his memoir's (that he didn't even want to call memoirs, mind you, it's labeled, Memoir/Literature), he certainly suspends disbelief in bringing to life the characters. You will feel their pain and their defeats, their victories and their happines, at least to where I've read to. I don't know about the rest of the book... but he's never been one for the crapped out ending, so I'm quite sure. Buy it, you'll love it. If you don't buy it and you don't read it, then just don't write a review, for a review is not how you feel about the author, it's how you feel about the work he put out into the world, so be mature, grow up, and read a good book from a unique and new voice in the world of literature. Comment Comments (27) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   12 of 13 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars I LOVE JAMES FREY. READ THIS BOOK., June 29, 2008 By  G. Blake "Oh God" (Central Park West, NYC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    I did not read Million Little Pieces, but after Oprahs ridiculous self-absorbed scene (you lied to me, you lied to me!) I wanted to support James and just had a feeling that he was good. Wow. I haven't enjoyed a book this much since The Corrections. So if you liked that, and think you might like this, then read it. Also, does anyone see the subtle association of it's character Amberton Parker to Tom Cruise? (The last three letter 'ton' sound like "Tom" and the opposite of parking is cruising. I thought it was so evident - in fact it so mimicked Tom Cruise as a possible way that he lives. The lives of the other characters - brilliant. Real. So engrossing. The way the chapters are written - very easy to read a section and stop - and pick up again. I love the LA history - you see a perfect storm brewing. I am only about 100 pages in, but had to stop and say that this is AMAZING, and anyone that doesn't like this is wasting resources on this planet and should kill themselves, and I mean that. This is a great book. JAMES FREY IS A BLESSING TO THIS WORLD. Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   7 of 7 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars James Frey is a master storyteller, June 24, 2008 By  Cathi O'Sullivan "desiderata7" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    I want to preface this review by saying that I am one of those people who couldn't care less if James Frey or his publishers (or whomever) called his first book, A Million Little Pieces, a memoir. The fact that is was a great piece of literature -- terrific story, great writing, and a truly compelling read -- is all that should matter at the end of the day. His next book, My Friend Leonard, was at least as good, if not better, and more than proved that James Frey was not a one-hit-wonder. With that being said, I now want to gush about Bright Shiny Morning. No, it's not the least bit uplifting and it covers dark topics that many of us wish we could ignore. BUT...but the story is so well-told that you won't be able to put the book down...you will want to know what happens to each character, and why. You will be so instantly engrossed that even the unbelievably breathtaking views of the Caribbean will not cause you to lift your head up from the pages of this book. At least that was my experience. READ IT! Then share with others. You won't be sorry. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 152 customer reviews...		Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorites... I bought it in an airport not knowing what to expect. I hadn't read his previous books and I'd only heard about him because of Oprah's big on-air freak out. Read more Published 3 days ago by Christie 5.0 out of 5 stars great book This book was different, but really good. It's not written in the traditional style, so it sometimes is hard to follow. Published 5 days ago by Krista M. Sawn 2.0 out of 5 stars After awhile, I just put it down. I never read "A Million Little Pieces", and I never stuck my nose into any of that scandal business a few years back. Read more Published 23 days ago by The Guy That Does Book Reviews 3.0 out of 5 stars Hit and Miss The truth about James Frey's first real novel, Bright Shiny Morning, is that it isn't as good as Million Little Pieces. Read more Published 26 days ago by Zach Preiksa 4.0 out of 5 stars life in Los Angeles They come by foot, by car, by bus or plane to Los Angeles. They are looking to start anew, looking to vanish, or just looking. Read more Published 1 month ago by Harriet Klausner 1.0 out of 5 stars Like Brett Easton Ellis ..if he were completely trite, boring and predictable. The only vignette even remotely original involves a Hispanic housekeeper and her body image issues (wow, that's really... Read more Published 1 month ago by Brian Moore 5.0 out of 5 stars Bright Shiny Morning Another winner for James Frey! This one is fiction but none the less wonderful. Frey has a way with words. Read more Published 1 month ago by Chantelle Sundberg 3.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing, while it lasts The author was successful in involving my emotions; I cared about the main characters and made time in my day to get back to the book to find out what happened to them... Read more Published 2 months ago by Elizabeth 4.0 out of 5 stars Quotation Marks? We Don't Need No Quotation Marks! I looked at the cover of this book, read "James Frey" and went a little crazy trying to remember where I heard it from. Read more Published 3 months ago by J. D. MacGregor 5.0 out of 5 stars just great storytelling Great modern writing capturing some very possible stories in LA. It is a bit frantic . . . jumping from one story to the next, then to another and sometimes back to an existing... Read more Published 3 months ago by Indygreg Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 152 customer reviews...

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