Several years ago there was a huge literary uproar over A Million Little Pieces (New York: Anchor Books, 2004), the so-called "memoir" by writer James Frey concerning his supposed criminal career and bizarre misadventures. With a push from Oprah Winfrey (who has become an incredibly powerful force in American book publishing with her Oprah's Book Club), the book sold more than three and a half million copies, and was second only to the latest "Harry Potter" book among that year's best-sellers.

The trouble started when The Smoking Gun, an investigative website, reported about a million little lies in A Million Little Pieces. It turns out that whole sections of the book were either wildly exaggerated or outright fiction. The author was confronted about the allegations on Larry King Live, bu…