People on the internet, including Edward Champion, are calling bullshit on this June 19th Father's Day op/ed by Richard Farrell in the Los Angeles Times. It begins:

I killed my dad. I didn't blow him away with a gun. Instead, I let him die. I pulled a kitchen chair up next to him and watched him struggle to breathe on the floor. The skin on his face turned a reddish-purple. His neck took on a bluish tint. Both his hands clutched tightly at his chest. And suddenly, the white in his eyes became spider-web etched, in blood-red lines.

It continues in this way, until the story finally involves abuse, heartbreak, malpractice, and a crippling heroin addiction that began on the same day that the Farrell's dad died. Farrell has a book called What's Left of Me: A Memoir of Addiction coming out soon. On the book's website, Farrell calls James Frey's fake memoir A Million Little Pieces "make-believe, bravado bullshit" and says Frey's book "fails miserably. I'll let the reader be the judge of mine." Commenters on the L.A. Times story alternate between sympathy for Farrell's story and utter disbelief. I hope the book's publisher has some sort of plan to address these accusations; nobody wants to believe authors of addiction memoirs anymore, especially if those memoirs contain some unbelievable details.

For what it's worth, Farrell (or someone claiming to be Farrell) appeared to respond to Edward Champion's parody of the L.A. Times piece by commenting on his blog:

great piece, i loved it…came up in my google..just so you and your readers know…i wrote my memoir in light of the james frey era of memoirs with one thought always in mind…”here is my story, come fuckin’ prove i made it up, i’m ready.” and that is just what the la times fact checkers did…edward, somebody has to break the ice for what frey did to us!!!!!but i love parody…keep up the great job!!!