GalleyCat may have been the first media outlet to publish a confirmed report of James Frey's new book deal, but the flipside is that by waiting until HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham could return their calls, Hillel Italie, Jeffrey Trachtenberg, and Motoko Rich all have good quotes from him in their coverage, and probe the story of how the deal came together with more arresting details.

But the best quote, I think, is in Nan Talese's remarks to Rich for the NYT article, looking back at all the controversy over A Million Little Pieces: "He made a mistake by exaggerating those things and not letting us know about it... If it wasn't a four-million-copy best seller, no one would have noticed you've made a mistake." He made a mistake? Wait a sec: Less than two months ago, Talese was publicly defending Frey, rationalizing the memoir's plastic relationship to reality by suggesting "when someone starts out and says, 'I have been an alcoholic, I have lied, I have cheated' ... you do not think this is going to be the New Testament," then told her audience that "the only person who should be apologetic is Oprah Winfrey." And now he's the one that fumbled the ball on the memoir? Actually, it's that "you" that's a bit more telling, and much as it may make me sound like a high school football coach, I'm going to go here anyway: There's no "you" in "mistake."