James Frey Books In Order

I Am Number Four

Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books but we are real. Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. we have lived among you without you knowing. But they know. They caught Number One in Malaysia. Number Two in England. And Number Three in Kenya. They killed them all. I Am Number Four. I am next.

The Power of Six

I’ve seen him on the news. Followed the stories about what happened in Ohio. John Smith, out there, on the run. To the world, he’s a mystery. But to me…
he’s one of us. Nine of us came here, but sometimes I wonder if time has changed us if we all still believe in our mission. How can I know? There are six of us left. We’re hiding, blending in, avoiding contact with one another…
but our Legacies are developing, and soon we’ll be equipped to fight. Is John Number Four, and is his appearance the sign I’ve been waiting for? And what about Number Five and Six? Could one of them be the raven haired girl with the stormy eyes from my dreams? The girl with powers that are beyond anything I could ever imagine? The girl who may be strong enough to bring the six of us together? They caught Number One in Malaysia. Number Two in England. And Number Three in Kenya. They tried to catch Number Four in Ohio and failed. I am Number Seven. One of six still alive. And I’m ready to fight.

Bright Shiny Morning

One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers his first novel a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original.

Dozens of characters pass across the reader’s sight lines some never to be seen again but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA’s lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth addled teenage girl shows up half dead outside the restroom he calls home.

Throughout this strikingly powerful novel there is the relentless drumbeat of the millions of other stories that, taken as a whole, describe a city, a culture, and an age. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.

American Pitbull

One of the most beloved dogs of the 20th century, the American Pit Bull Terrier has in recent times become one of the most maligned and misunderstood. Marc Joseph’s photographic exploration into the culture of Pit Bulls dogs and their people presents an alternative view of the controversial world revolving around this uniquely American breed of dog, and the human beings who live for them. Granted unprecedented access to homes, yards, events, and celebrated figures including hip hop recording artists such as Big Boi from Outkast, and DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill, Joseph reveals this culture through captivating photographs taken across the United States. Issues of identity are addressed through elements of image, race, pride, and background, while the images simultaneously serve to further an understanding of our perceptions of unconditional love, beauty, danger, and strength. Rich with metaphor, themes of family and shelter are prominent; throughout the series a cast of characters emerges, themselves defining the context of the work.

Interviews by Cory Reynolds; with an historical and personal essay from best selling author James Frey My Friend Leonard, A Million Little Pieces.

in truth, a breathtakingly original view of American Culture. DAVID SCHONNAUER / AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE / MARCH 2005

Joseph may have found the perfect totem animal for contemporary America the often contradictory traits of loyalty and fearlessness, pugnacity and menace, obedience and rebellion EDGAR ALLEN BEEM / PHOTO DISTRICT NEWS / NOVEMBER 2003

I believe it is very important to look squarely at societal issues, and a photographic typology is the perfect vehicle for looking at this one. Mr. Joseph has created a suite of pictures that are as powerful as they are revealing. Seen alone the pictures are tender or frightening or dignified. Cumulatively they are a riveting photographic manifestation of American culture. JOEL STERNFELD, PHOTOGRAPHER AMERICAN PROSPECTS, STRANGER PASSING

Marc Joseph’s handsomely packaged photography collection American Pitbull is a complicated expression of how objects transform into icons, and how this courageous, unstoppable breed serves as a symbol to owners glorifying those same qualities in themselves. FELICIA FEASTER / CREATIVE LOAFING / ATLANTA, GA 01. 08. 04

BESTSELLERS 14 LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER LIST FOR NOVEMBER 23, 2003

American Pitbull challenges facile assumptions…
Joseph provides a fascinating visual portrait of the nation’s most vilified dogs which makes us re evaluate just who is drawn to these dogs and why. DENISE FLAIM / NEW YORK NEWSDAY APRIL 26, 2004

I am reminded of Bill Owens photographic essay and book, Suburbia. His posed photos of big haired ladies and empty swimming pools seem deliberately campy. Just when you start to think how desolate these people s lives must be, you turn the page and there is a portrait of Owens own family. He was not photographing the Other, he captured his own experience and in so doing, marked a point in social history. Such is the case with Joseph s work. He did not approach this project from the outside…
American Pitbull is one man s view of the dogs and their people…
a personal journey of his connection to a special breed of dog.

LILLIAN SIZEMORE / PROGRAM DIRECTOR, FIFTY CROWS INT’L FUND FOR DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY

MARC JOSEPH was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and has been making pictures since his father presented him with the gift of a camera, at age 17. After college and a year in Paris, he relocated to New York City in 1987, where he now lives and works. American Pitbull is his first book.

JAMES FREY is the author of the memoir A Million Little Pieces, a New York Times bestseller that was named the best book of 2003 by Amazon. com. It was subsequently published in thirty countries and became a bestseller around the world. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, he and his family live in New York City with their two dogs, one of which is an American Pit Bull Terrier. His latest work, My Friend Leonard, is published by Riverhead.

CORY REYNOLDS served as editor of the monograph, Peter Halley: Maintain Speed, and is the former editor of Index Magazine, where she interviewed Abel Ferrara, Isabel Huppert, Jurgen Teller, and many others.

Paperback, 8. 75 x 11 in./248 pgs / 220 color.

Wives, Wheels, Weapons

Wives, Wheels, Weapons excerpts three stories from Bright Shiny Morning and pairs them with photographer Terry Richardson’s provocative photographs. In the book, each artist tells a story titled ‘Wives’, ‘Wheels’, and ‘Weapons’. Frey tells his tale in words, Richardson presents three photo essays loosely based on Frey’s writing, creating a titillating encounter between literature and art. From an edition of just 1000 this book has an original dust jacket design by Terry Richardson.

A Million Little Pieces

Intense, unpredictable, and instantly engaging, A Million Little Pieces is a story of drug and alcohol abuse and rehabilitation as it has never been told before. Recounted in visceral, kinetic prose, and crafted with a forthrightness that rejects piety, cynicism, and self pity, it brings us face to face with a provocative new understanding of the nature of addiction and the meaning of recovery. By the time he entered a drug and alcohol treatment facility, James Frey had taken his addictions to near deadly extremes. He had so thoroughly ravaged his body that the facility’s doctors were shocked he was still alive. The ensuing torments of detoxification and withdrawal, and the never ending urge to use chemicals, are captured with a vitality and directness that recalls the seminal eye opening power of William Burroughs s Junky. But A Million Little Pieces refuses to fit any mold of drug literature. Inside the clinic, James is surrounded by patients as troubled as he is including a judge, a mobster, a one time world champion boxer, and a fragile former prostitute to whom he is not allowed to speak but their friendship and advice strikes James as stronger and truer than the clinic s droning dogma of How to Recover. James refuses to consider himself a victim of anything but his own bad decisions, and insists on accepting sole accountability for the person he has been and the person he may become which runs directly counter to his counselors’ recipes for recovery. James has to fight to find his own way to confront the consequences of the life he has lived so far, and to determine what future, if any, he holds. It is this fight, told with the charismatic energy and power of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, that is at the heart of A Million Little Pieces: the fight between one young man s will and the ever tempting chemical trip to oblivion, the fight to survive on his own terms, for reasons close to his own heart. A Million Little Pieces is an uncommonly genuine account of a life destroyed and a life reconstructed. It is also the introduction of a bold and talented literary voice. From the eBook edition.

My Friend Leonard

Perhaps the most unconventional and literally breathtaking father son story you’ll ever read, My Friend Leonard pulls you immediately and deeply into a relationship as unusual as it is inspiring.

The father figure is Leonard, the high living, recovering coke addict ‘West Coast Director of a large Italian American finance firm’ read: mobster who helped to keep James Frey clean in A Million Little Pieces. The son is, of course, James, damaged perhaps beyond repair by years of crack and alcohol addiction and by more than a few cruel tricks of fate.

James embarks on his post rehab existence in Chicago emotionally devastated, broke, and afraid to get close to other people. But then Leonard comes back into his life, and everything changes. Leonard offers his ‘son’ lucrative if illegal and slightly dangerous employment. He teaches James to enjoy life, sober, for the first time. He instructs him in the art of ‘living boldly,’ pushes him to pursue his passion for writing, and provides a watchful and supportive veil of protection under which James can get his life together. Both Leonard’s and James’s careers flourish…
but then Leonard vanishes. When the reasons behind his mysterious absence are revealed, the book opens up in unexpected emotional ways.

My Friend Leonard showcases a brilliant and energetic young writer rising to important new challenges displaying surprising warmth, humor, and maturity without losing his intensity. This book proves that one of the most provocative literary voices of his generation is also one of the most emphatically human.

Hint Fiction

A story collection that proves less is more. The stories in this collection run the gamut from playful to tragic, conservative to experimental, but they all have one thing in common: they are no more than 25 words long. Robert Swartwood was inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s possibly apocryphal six word story ‘For Sale: baby shoes, never worn’ to foster the writing of these incredibly short short stories. He termed them ‘Hint Fiction‘ because the few chosen words suggest a larger, more complex chain of events. Spare and evocative, these stories prove that a brilliantly honed narrative can be as startling and powerful as a story of traditional length. The 125 gemlike stories in this collection come from such best selling and award winning authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Ha Jin, Peter Straub, and James Frey, as well as emerging writers.