Caught in the Frey

Okay, so people are losing it over James Frey's fictionalized memoir, and so future editions will have a content note at the beginning. I know it's a strange question to ask, but are memoirs actually required to be factually sound in the first place? I understand why people expect them to be, and actually, I don't think it's entirely ridiculous that they should get a refund for the book. And, again, I certainly don't think it's "disturbing", but isn't there a point to be made that memoirs do involve memory which is, in itself, a form of fiction? When historians use them we take them with a very large grain of salt. So, maybe there is merit to the argument that Frey and JT Leroy were novelists working in a certain genre...

I guess we do have less stringent style requirements for memoirs. Have you ever read Police Chief Moose's memoir? The writing is just dreadful. Even the individual paragraphs don't hold up as being actual paragraphs (they make several seperate and unrelated points). And, actually, most autobiographies are poorly-written. Memoirs a bit less so. But, I think we read them for the "insider's perspective". An author takes events from their life and turns them into literature, while a memoirist turns them into accounts. We simply do not expect the same level of writing. So, I can see a mediocre author with an hard sell book slapping the words "a memoir" onto it for an easier sell. I'm guessing that was Frey's story.