Summary

A searing and controversial story of drug and alcohol abuse and rehabilitation, told with the charismatic energy of Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the revelatory power of Burroughs' Junky.


"Imagine waking up on a plane. You have no idea where you have been or where you are going, you have no memory of the preceding two weeks." "Imagine that your front four teeth have been knocked out, your nose is broken, and there is a gash on your cheek. Imagine that you have no wallet, no money, no job." "Imagine the police in three states are looking for you." "Imagine that you have been an alcoholic for ten years and a crack addict for three. What would you do? What would you do?" "When he entered a residential treatment center at the age of twenty-three, James Frey had destroyed his body and his mind almost beyond repair. He faced a stark choice: accept that he wasn't going to see twenty-four or step into the fallout of his smoking wreck of a life and take drastic action. Surrounded by patients as troubled as he - including a judge, a mobster, a former world-champion boxer, and a fragile former prostitute - and a droning dogma of How to Recover, Frey had to fight to find his own way to confront the consequences of the life he had lived so far, and to determine what future, if any, he holds. A Million Little Pieces is an uncommonly genuine account of a life destroyed and a life reconstructed."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved


The most lacerating tale of drug addiction since William S. Burroughs' Junky. --The Boston Globe
Again and again, the book delivers recollections that leave the reader winded and unsteady. James Frey's staggering recovery memoir could well be seen as the final word on the topic.--San Francisco Chronicle
A brutal, beautifully written memoir.--The Denver Post
Gripping . . . A great story . . . You can't help but cheer his victory. --Los Angeles Times Book Review