Deadline has tracked down the author behind an anonymously written book that’s making waves in Hollywood.
The magazine reported that the author of Next to Heaven, a novel that has already landed a television deal and is currently being shopped for a publishing deal, is James Frey.
Frey made headlines in 2006, after a Daily Beast report that accused him of fabricating stories in his 2003 memoir, A Million Little Pieces. The book, a chronicle of Frey’s youthful struggles with substance use disorder, had initially received critical praise, including a starred review from Kirkus, which called it “startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.”
Months after the Daily Beast report, Frey acknowledged that he had made up portions of the book. He went on to found a literary production company, Full Fathom Five.
Next to Heaven, Deadline reports, follows two best friends in Connecticut who decide to host a party for swingers, at which one partygoer ends up dead. Television rights to the novel were acquired by producers Mike Larocca and Michael Schaefer.
Deadline reporter Mike Fleming Jr. said that figuring out the author was Frey was “not like cracking the case of the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping.”
“Lit scouts who read the novel quickly deciphered the mystery,” Fleming wrote. “Frey has a way with grammar and sentence structure that makes his works move at 60 mph, and those trademark flourishes were there.”
Frey has confirmed to Deadline that he is indeed the author of Next to Heaven. Fleming wrote, “I tracked down Frey, who acknowledged that he wrote the book and that when it is published next summer, it will go under his proper name.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
