a million little pieces

My roommate has Oprah on. She's interviewing James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces. It has recently been revealed that much of the material in the book - a memoir of Frey's recovery from addiction - was embellished or made up. It originally made Oprah's Book Club; Oprah publicly defended Frey on Larry King, but now she seems to have decided to take it personally. Here's a paraphrased part of a conversation between her and the book's publisher, Nan Talese:

Oprah: When did you realize he was lying?

Talese: When I first read the manuscript I thought it was sensational. But as a publisher, do you ask the author, "Are you really as bad as you say you are?"

Oprah [interrupting]: Yes!

[Audience claps, cheers, etc.]

Yes Oprah, you do ask. For example, each of Hunter S Thompson's books were carefully fact-checked before they were printed. His publisher personally examined the contents of Thompson's trunk to make sure that he did, in fact, bring "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls" on his trip through the desert. After all, the reader will believe everything the author says if the word "memoir" is on the cover, and the reader has a right not to be deceived.