Poor James Frey. His A Million Little Pieces will no longer be made into a movie (I wonder if he wll have to give the money back to producers), he was publicly discredited by Oprah (which should sell another million copies for him), and he's put the whole publishing industry under a cloud. Questions about who knew what when will be circulating for months. It seems that no one associated with his book checked the facts. No one had discovered that he had originally tried to publish Pieces as a novel.

The question arises: When does factual inaccuracy become actual lying? As we all know, two people can witness the same event and come up with totally different accounts of what happened. Were this the case, Frey could be exonerated. But knowingly publishing fabrication under the guise of fact is a different matter entirely. Frey admitted to inventing the facts.

Now the question becomes, Do the Same Rules Apply to Fiction? Most readers do realize that since a novel, short story or play is a work of imagination, it doesn't have to conform tightly to historical or even physical reality. No one could possibly know what Alexander the Great was thinking when he conquered the Persians, but no one disputes the fact that he fought and won against them. But what if the writer makes up a totally unfactual battle in a made-up country. Must she explain that this is just a fabrication, just as Bottom feels it is necessary to explain to the audience that what happens on stage isn't real in Midsummer's Night's Dream? In a similar vein, should the reader necessarily discount everything else in the book as make-believe? Novels have given us priceless looks into the societies of their day. What should the reader believe, and what should she disbelieve?

A case in point is my novel, The Cellini Masterpiece. The country of Malta exists, but as far as I know, my hero Rick Olsen doesn't. The capital of the country is Valletta, but you won't find Black Dolphin shipping there. Furthermore, th

ere are still remnants of noble families on the island, but there never was one called the Cornacchias. How much should be included in a disclaimer? Should there be one at all?

I hope I can claim plausibility for the events in the story, but I certainly don't have to claim that they actually happened, or if they did, in the way I have told it. I have been called to task for a rather silly gaffe about where Queen's University is located, and the error was corrected. Will it hurt that someone might actually believe it is in Toronto instead of Richmond? A great work of fiction must blend truth and fabrication seamlessly. I have been asked many times if the Cellini Masterpiece actually existed. The answer is no, but I've been flattered that they wondered if it did.

The fall-out from Frey likely will not end soon. It has become a much-needed forum for discussion of the nature of fiction and non-fiction. I expect it will add fuel to questions about the insularity of the publishing world. How long will the giants be putting out only those books that they feel has best-seller potential? Why is it that despite the difficulty a new writer has to face just to get a book read, there are more than 200,000 new books published every year? How many of the books that purport to be non-fiction actually are that?

In the words of a respected purveyor of factual knowledge, Good Night and Good Luck.

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