James Christopher Frey (born September 12, 1969) is an American writer and the founder and CEO of Full Fathom Five, a transmedia production company responsible for the young adult series "The Lorien Legacies", the first book of which, I Am Number Four (2010), was made into a feature film by DreamWorks Studios.
His two first books, A Million Little Pieces (2003) and My Friend Leonard (2005), were marketed as memoirs, but large parts of the stories were later found to be exaggerated or fabricated. His 2008 novel Bright Shiny Morning was also a bestseller.
Frey also wrote the screenplays to the films Kissing a Fool and Sugar: The Fall of the West. Both were produced in 1998, the latter of which he directed as well.
Doubleday published A Million Little Pieces in April 2003, and Amazon.com editors selected it as their favorite book of that year.
In 2004, Frey wrote My Friend Leonard, which continued where A Million Little Pieces left off, and centered on the father-son relationship which Frey and his friend Leonard, from Hazelden, shared. My Friend Leonard was published in June 2005 by Riverhead, and became a bestseller.
In 2007, Frey wrote Bright Shiny Morning, which was published in May 2008 by HarperCollins.
Frey's books have been published in thirty-one languages worldwide.
In late 2007, Frey signed a new three-book, seven-figure deal with Harper Collins to release his novel, Bright Shiny Morning, which was published May 13, 2008. Bright Shiny Morning appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, and has received mixed reviews. The New York Times's Janet Maslin, who had previously been one of Frey's detractors, gave the book a rave review. The New Yorker review described the novel as "banal". The book also received highly polarized reviews by the New York, LA Times, Guardian UK. The first epigraph states: "Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable."
In 2011, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, depicted as "the last book of the Bible" was released on Good Friday, April 22, 2011. He is self-publishing e-editions of the book. A self-professed atheist, his work has reflected his attempt to write about a god that he "might actually believe in."
On August 19, 2010, the New York Post's Page Six reported that Frey has teamed up with executive producers Mark Wahlberg and Steve Levinson to write the pilot for a one-hour drama for HBO that will focus on a behind-the-scenes look into the porn industry in Los Angeles. Frey described the show as "a sprawling epic about the porn business in LA. We're going to tell the type of stories no one else has told before, and go places no one has gone before."[11] In August 2012, Frey published "A Moving Story", chronicling the workplace organizing of a New York moving company, on the website Libcom.
On October 7, 2014, Endgame: The Calling, the first book in a trilogy of novellas by Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton, was published by HarperCollins. It was turned into an augmented reality game by Google's Niantic Labs, as well as a movie by 20th Century Fox. The premise of the novella is that aliens created human life on Earth and 12 ancient lines are destined to train a player to fight to the death for the survival of their line once Endgame begins. The book series will also have clues which will lead one lucky winner to a cash prize.
In November 18, 2015, Pepsi released "Black Knight Decoded," a fictional narrative imagining a conspiracy involving the Black Knight satellite legend. Frey was credited as the writer.
Frey is a Denison University alum and history major from the class of 1992.
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