TheSmokingGun

Six years ago, a young memoirist named James Frey smacked the rarefied literary world with A Million Little Pieces, a down-and-dirty memoir of addiction and recovery whose hard-boiled prose spurted his blood and broken teeth into startled readers' cappuccinos. As he threw elbows at popular peers...

Erik Slye really didn't want to miss work earlier this year when he was called to serve on a Montana jury. The 36-year-old man sent a notarized affidavit to the court, writing, "I CANNOT take time off from work. I'm not putting my family's well-being at stake to participate in this crap," according...