UPDATED with reader input!

We just found out from Gawker that James Frey's website got taken down by his system administrators until this whole mess blows over. "There were over 300,000 unique visitors in the past week," reads the suspension notice, "his bandwidth was up around 3200kb/s, and most importantly it was affecting access to other clients who share the same network connection." So, never mind that this is probably the one time in the world the guy's going to need a website to keep his side of the story online, they're giving him a timeout in the corner.

But for 300,000 visitors in one week? What kind of mom-and-pop hosting service did he spring for? Interestingly enough, a WHOIS search lists Frey as both the administrative and the technical contact for the site, which probably means something, although I'm darned if I know what, exactly. Maybe he's got a small web server in his downtown apartment in case this writing thing doesn't pan out.

UPDATE: In fact, suggests an anonymous reader, the on-site explanation sounds about as realistic as, well, A Million Little Pieces. "I've never, EVER seen an ISP compose a personal explanation apologizing for a shutdown of one site for excess bandwidth," says this source, who's been online long enough to know. "Normally all you get is 'Bandwidth exceeded' or 'Too Many Users' or... you don't get anything at all. And though Frey is big stuff in the literary news, it's penny-ante stuff for the internet—300k hits? How come his site didn't shut down when he was on Oprah?"

Now, in all fairness, that could have been because all that traffic went to amillionlittlepieces.com, but still, if you look up bigjimindustries, the servers are held by Network Solutions, "who are fucking huge," my source reminds me. "If they can't handle 300k hits, half the web would collapse. Which it hasn't. And If your usage spikes, any ISP is happy to crank up your service plan for a somewhat higher fee." Which Frey could easily afford with the kind of green he's been raking in with his stories. Add this to the fact that the BJI logo still seems to be a gateway for password-enabled access to the site, and it all adds up to James Frey looking like the bastard son of Lillian Hellman, including "and" and "the."