That guy who said, “There are no second acts in American lives,” obviously knew nothing about American literature.* James Frey perpetrated the biggest literary hoax of recent years with his memoir A Million Little Pieces, glamourizing his fictitious past of sex, drugs, and crime. (Evidently Akon was one of his biggest fans.) Now he’s set to return to the world of publishing next month with a novel—yes, a real novel—called Bright Shiny Morning. The first review called the new book “a train wreck of a novel,” and said it was “less believable in its way than his ‘augmented’ memoir ever was.”

Trainwreck the book may be, but Frey’s ability to land a new publisher after embarrassing his old publisher, Doubleday, and enraging Oprah Winfrey suggests that Frey’s ability to bullshit his audience is nothing short of superhuman. Eventually, of course, I expect we’ll learn Bright Shiny Morning isn’t so much a novel as a coldly factual recounting of perfectly true events. But right now, Frey seems to be proving that with enough chutzpah there’s no pit you can’t dig yourself out of.

*This is intended as a joke, so save your scornful comments.