The curious thing about the Frey business is how betrayed some of his readers seem to feel. True, no one likes being lied to (well, almost no one), and Frey did feed his readers a series of have-it-your-way whoppers. But "betray" is a powerful word; it not only grunts, it’s smellier than "deceive" and hairier than "cheat." Clinton and Scaramouche cheated; Judas and Brutus betrayed.

Judging from Oprah’s reactions, so did Frey.

Please. The man needs bouquets, not brickbats.

Frey’s invented a whole new class of literature. Call it "reality fiction."

"Reality fiction" is real in the way a hot-dog is a sausage. To wit:
if you removed the salt, corn syrup, "flavorings,"  food starch,
sodium compounds (phosphates,nitrite etc.), dextrose, and oh yeah, pulverized bone, then the hot dog is not dissimilar to the sausage. But the point is this:
irrespective of whether it’s sausage or not, a hot dog is pretty yummy.

Reality fiction is a lot like reality TV except that the TV is
inside your head. RF (rhymes with SF and Yusuf) can be unbelievably
inspiring as long as you don’t ask how real is real. As this Zen koan illustrates:

Circumstances arose one day which delayed preparation of the dinner of
a Soto Zen master, Fugai, and his followers. In haste the cook went to the
garden with his curved knife and cut off the tops of green veetables,
chopped them together, and made soup, unaware that in his haste he had
included a part of a snake in the vegetables.

The followers of Fugai thought they had never tasted such great soup.
But when the master himself found the snake’s head in his bowl, he
summoned the cook. "What is this?" he demanded, holding up the head of the
snake.

"Oh, thank you, master," replied the cook, taking the morsel and eating
it quickly.

RF resolves two
out-standing problems. (1) How to enjoy reality without getting
depressed, and (2) How to take fiction seriously.

The possibilities of RF are mind boggling. Imagine how much more exciting
it’ll be to read research papers where mice may or may not have
actually run their possibly non-existent mazes. Even the goverment
could get into the act. It may turn out, for instance, that Martha
Stewart’s trial was pure RF, say, Uncle Sam’s treat for the American people
for being such good sports about the war. Or imagine not
having to imagine at all; reality really happens, so there’s really
nothing to imagine. I, for one, am sick of  imagining. It hurts and not in a good way either.

Betrayed? C’mon.