James Frey’s “first” novel comes out Tuesday, May 13. It’s called “Bright Shiny Morning” and I’ve seen two early reviews this week. The New York Times’ Janet Maslin really likes the book, calling it energetic and tender and his second chance. Frey  ruined his reputation, of course, with his supposed memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” which he presented to Oprah and a million others as completely true (it wasn’t). 

His novel is set in Los Angeles and deals with several different characters and their stories. Unlike the Times review, Bloomberg News says that the stories don’t come together and the book as a whole doesn’t work.

Even if you don’t plan on reading Frey’s novel, it’s hard not to gossip about him. He was so publicly humiliated on Oprah. And now he’s going to be, if not all over the media again, at least on several prominent shows (he’s scheduled for the Today show Tuesday.) In the new Vanity Fair, he says Norman Mailer helped him buck up after he was savaged for his fictionalized memoir. The way the magazine presents Mailer’s words, one wonders if the writer got the info from Frey or Mailer. Mailer’s obviously not around anymore to refute it, if the quotation came from someone else. Anyway, here’s what Vanity Fair says that Mailer told Frey: 

They sat down on the couch and talked about memoirs, a genre, Mailer said, that was by definition corrupt: “That’s why a writer writes his memoir, to tell a lie and create an ideal self. Everything I’ve ever written is memoir, you know, is an inflated vision of the ideal Platonic self.”

Mailer welcomed Frey into the elite circle of bad boys. “For 40 years they stomped on me. Now you have the privilege of being stomped on for the next 40 years.” And he compared them both to boxers. “Every fight, boxers prepare to take their opponent’s best shot. You should prepare to take huge shots every time out because they’ll never stop The work has been controversial enough that you’re never going to be like one of the guys. You’re never going to be one of the ones that the newspapers love or that wins awards. [You’re] always going to take a beating publicly. And that’s endurable if you just focus on what matters, which is the work.”