Let it rip.
On the release of Next to Heaven by James Frey
New Bethlehem is as beautiful and safe and perfect a town as exists in the United States, as beautiful and safe and perfect a town as exists anywhere in the world. But no beauty exists without flaws, however hidden. Absolute safety is but an illusion. No matter what we think or see or believe or feel, perfection isn’t real. And beneath the beauty and safety and perfection of New Bethlehem, there are secrets and there are lies, and there is sadness and there is rage, there is failure and there is desperation, betrayal and heartbreak, hate and violence.
And once or twice in a century, there is murder.
About a year ago, I was boarding a flight from LA to New York, bracing for six hours in a middle seat at the back of the plane. My phone pinged with a text flagging a priority submission. I downloaded, put in earphones to tune out seatmates, and settled in for the ride. And what a ride it's been.
I had last encountered
a few decades earlier when I was the sales director for the imprint publishing his debut—a spectacular piece of writing that did spectacularly well until it became spectacularly controversial. Many people got very, very angry at the author.I wasn't one of them. To me, the whole thing seemed tragic and operatically fraught. Looking back on it now, compared to so many other literary controversies, this one makes 2003 feel, to me, like the Victorian age—long ago and far away in its earnest morality.
By the time I got off that plane in New York last spring, I knew I wanted to publish James’ new book.
Next to Heaven is pure fun in the way not many books are these days. It's not trying to teach. It's not trying to preach. It's The White Lotus in Connecticut, starring the contemporary descendants of Capote's Fifth Avenue swans—but with so much more money and so much less class. You may not want to meet any of these characters, but you can't resist peeping through their windows to see up close what makes them tick. The dialogue was so sharp I actually—for real—laughed out loud in that middle seat. I was immediately reminded why I'd fallen in love with James's writing all those years ago. It moves.
And, like Capote amongst the swans, James writes with a verisimilitude that can only, as The Wall Street Journal now puts it, come from living amongst the tribe he’s documenting.
Despite their advantages, rich people were rarely ever cool, though they spent huge amounts of money trying to achieve it. And cool people were rarely rich because they were lazy, and part of being cool is not giving a fuck. But rich people and cool people often interact because each has what the other wants.
My colleagues Robin and Carly felt the same way, so off we went to meet with James and his agent Eric. We approached the encounter with some nerves. We loved the book, but what about this author?
We needn't have worried. I don't know how long the meeting went, but it was long enough that Eric finally had to kick us all out of his office. And it was long enough that we knew we'd be working together and that it would be fun. Our parting words to each other: "Let it rip."
Here's what's been normal about publishing James Frey: pretty much everything. Author and editor immediately settled in together. We quickly found the right publicist and the right designer. We presented the book to the sales reps and booksellers. Everyone got to work doing all the many things you have to do to publish any book.
Of course there's some drama. Some people are still mad about AMLP, and some others are so ready to renew their anger they'll jump at shadows, like the rumor that Next to Heaven was written with AI (it wasn't).
Nobody wants to party with you.
Nobody?
Sorry, Dude.
Not even you?
Sorry, Dude.
Charlie was shocked, speechless. It didn't make any sense. Everybody had always wanted to party with Charlie. And his truck had always been the center of the party. The loudest, the rowdiest, the most fun. The coldest beer and the steamiest hot dogs. The spiciest mustard and the tastiest relish. The Best Time Ever. And now nobody wanted to party with him. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe he was being shunned.
I can't know what the impact of all that hostility was on the James of five, ten, fifteen years ago, but the James we've been working with has metabolized it in such a way that he's not interested in playing it safe. While everyone else I know is constantly self-editing in public, conscious and wary of any of the many ways our own words can come back to haunt us, James is going the other way. He says all the quiet parts out loud.
Not surprisingly, that makes him fun to write about, and that colorful coverage in turn makes him even more interesting to half the people who read it and even more enraging to the other half.
There are more important things in life than money.
And I said
Yeah, what?
And in some bullshit, fake-sincere, bullshit voice, she said
Love and happiness, Billy. Love and happiness.
And I laughed, because I know and everybody with half a fucking brain knows that money buys you love and happiness.
Those who know James personally are like us: fiercely loyal and enthusiastically supportive. He’s warm and generous. He works hard and appreciates that everyone else does, too. He’s curious and game. And he just happens to be a fantastic storyteller.
A little more than a year after first reading the manuscript, pub date is finally here. For everyone looking for a vacation from all the seriousness and self-righteousness and darkness out there, we hope you'll enjoy this exuberantly entertaining, joyfully unapologetic skewering of some terrible people in their beautiful houses.
No book is for everyone, but for those this is right for, the escape offered between its lurid covers is a little slice of heaven indeed.
You going to tell me where we're going?
I think you already know.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Tell me.
We're going all the way. You and me. All the way.
Order your copy of Next to Heaven today, at Amazon, B&N, Bookshop, Book of the Month, and wherever books are sold.
And James is newly on Substack. Check him out at .
Love everything you wrote here! I also loved working on his first book and agree he got a raw deal. Can’t wait to read this!
I cannot wait for this one. Huzzah! And he’s exactly right. Rich people have zero chill, especially when it comes to loss of status. They cling to it like their first American Girl doll. 😂