Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey

I unabashedly love James Frey. Regardless of the is-memoir-is-it-fiction argument (which I'm not addressing here), this guy can write. I received Million Little Pieces as a galley when I lived in Chicago, and had already read (and cried over) My Friend Leonard when the "scandal" about Frey's veracity broke in late 2005. My glowing opinion of his aptitude as a writer was mostly fully formed when the bru-ha-ha exploded. It has not changed (and has only been strengthened) with the reading of his most recent offering, Bright Shiny Morning.

Started while housesitting over Spring Break, then put away....I knew that at 501 pages, I didn't have the capacity at the time to fully absorb and appreciate it.

The tongue-in-cheek prefaces, "Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable."Fairly warned, I jumped in to discover that Frey introduces some 20-odd characters within the first 35 pages. Alternating storylines of these people with short paragraphs on the history of the city of Los Angeles, I delighted in the characteristic non-traditional prose. I've never desired to live in LA, but this book made me cognizant of the culture and revisit some preconceived ideas about the diversity of the place. Even the seemingly dry landscape became palatable at the hands of this talented scribe.