James Frey's first book was fiction passed off as fact, but now the author, who was subjected to public mortification on the Oprah Winfrey show after he admitted that his memoir of drug and alcohol addiction was mostly made up, has taken the novel approach - writing fiction and presenting it as such.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned publisher HarperCollins announced this week that it had reached a deal to bring out Frey's novel Bright Shiny Morning. It gave no further details.
The novel promises a second act for Frey, who provoked a public backlash after it emerged that he had made up key portions of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces.
His deceptions included a claim that he had served three months in prison after hitting a police officer in his car while on a crack-fuelled joyride.
The account was America's non-fiction bestseller of 2005, and Frey's reputation seemed assured when Winfrey chose A Million Little Pieces for her book club. But that future quickly evaporated after newspapers and websites uncovered evidence that he had fabricated pivotal episodes from the book.
After initially championing his work, Winfrey called the author for a second appearance on her show in early 2006, during which she gave him a a public dressing down for the deception. She told him that she and her millions of viewers had felt duped.
Random House, which had published the memoir, introduced a new edition with a personal apology for the fabrication and paid out $2.35m in refunds to aggrieved purchasers.
"I wanted the stories in the book to ebb and flow, to have dramatic arcs, to have the tension that all great stories require," Frey's apology said.
He was also dropped by his agent and lost a lucrative deal with Riverhead Books, which had originally agreed to publish the novel.
Simon Burnham, who negotiated the deal with HarperCollins for Frey's novel, acknowledged that the author was a "media lightning rod". But Mr Burnham told the New York Times: "What matters is this is a very, very good work of fiction, and it very much stands up on its own."
