James Frey's back again and providing a litmus test as to how you fit in with the literati.

The good folks at AOL which give me the opportunity to blog have printed this snarky front-page  headline re the new novel BRIGHT SHINY MORNING by James Frey:

Lying 'Oprah' Author Is Back
Will Anyone Want to Read This?

And, whether or not one believes the allegations that Frey's A MILLION LITTLE PIECES was shopped as a novel and then marketed as a "memoir", it's safe to say the knives are out.  David Ulin, literary majordomo of THE LOS ANGELES TIMES Book Review Section and Deirdre Donahue of the more mass-market USA TODAY, are among the critics loudly reminding people that JAMES FREY CANNOT WRITE!!!

And this kind of fervor trickles down into the small corner of the literary community (the poets/writers who often imagine themselves as greater in talent and impact than they actually are) I have been involved with for the past decade.  As I told a friend a few days ago, a great way to ingratiate oneself into the positive attentions of L.A. literati is to sidle up to local poets/writers (or perhaps the staffs of Book Soup and Skylight Books) and talk about how JAMES FREY CANNOT WRITE!!! and how the Stupid Masses are stupid enough to give Frey another chance even after The Serial Liar was keelhauled by Oprah Winfrey and SOUTH PARK.

And I'm sure there will be a considerable amount of snark to be spread in print and online about Frey holding a book signing last night at the Sunset Strip landmark Whisky a Go Go.

Let's face it, the world is filled with the kind of "improving on truth" ethics that Frey received a smackdown for.  Hillary Clinton embellished a landing in Bosnia during her First Lady term for the edification of campaign-rally audiences.  George W. Bush recently told a whopper about giving up golf during the 2003 phase of the Iraq War that just keeps on going.

And the nation's self-appointed Smart People save most of their indignation for a wiry little bearded guy (pretending to be a rough tough badass along the lines of John Milius, Harry Crews and Joe Eszterhas) who seems to be interested more in making money than Lasting Art has a successful not-a-memoir-but-an-actual-novel on his hands.

Presumably, there will be a lot of exploding heads a la SCANNERS among book reviewers everywhere when the next Dan Brown novel is published.

Tags: James Frey, Dan Brown, A MILLION LITTLE PIECES, MY FRIEND LEONARD, Oprah Winfrey, SOUTH PARK, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, John Milius, Harry Crews, Joe Eszterhas, David Ulin, LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW, Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY, BRIGHT SHINY MORNING