Bright Shiny Morning

#1 National Bestseller

“A sprawling, ambitious novel about Los Angeles, written with all the broad-stroke energy that was so irresistible to readers in A Million Little Pieces. By turns satirical, tense, and surprisingly touching, it is a portrait of a city onto which so many millions have projected so many dreams. . . . Compelling, cinematic. . . . It achieves the very essence of Los Angeles’s fractured, unpredictable, loopy nature.”  — Vanity Fair

“A captivating urban kaleidoscope. . . . James Frey got another chance. Look what he did with it. He stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park. . . . He became a furiously good storyteller.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times

One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers an extraordinary novel—a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original. Dozens of characters pass through the reader's sight lines—some never to be seen again—but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA's lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.

Critical Praise

“Frey returns with a novel so powerful it makes one wonder why he ever detoured into nonfiction. . . . A wildly talented storyteller, he lets it rip in Morning—a gripping epic about Los Angeles.” — People (four stars)

“Bright Shiny Morning is un-put-downable, a real page-turner—in what may come to be known as the Frey tradition.” — Publishers Weekly

“A sprawling, ambitious novel about Los Angeles, written with all the broad-stroke energy that was so irresistible to readers in A Million Little Pieces. By turns satirical, tense, and surprisingly touching, it is a portrait of a city onto which so many millions have projected so many dreams. . . . Compelling, cinematic. . . . It achieves the very essence of Los Angeles’s fractured, unpredictable, loopy nature.” — Vanity Fair

“A captivating urban kaleidoscope. . . . James Frey got another chance. Look what he did with it. He stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park. . . . He became a furiously good storyteller.” — Janet Maslin, New York Times

“A meaty social novel in the Tom Wolfe vein. . . . Its subject is Los Angeles from the bottom to the top, and unless you have ice in your veins you’ll find its 501 pages of tiny print compulsively readable. I did.” — Bloomberg News

“Relentlessly entertaining. . . . Bright Shiny Morning is a refreshingly archaic affair, an old-fashioned book written in an old-fashioned style. . . . It’s reminiscent of one of Tom Wolfe’s billion-footed beasts, but it’s even more reminiscent of the socially conscious early 20th century naturalism of John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck. Fittingly, Frey uses a hard-boiled, under-punctuated, Hemingway type of nonstyle that seems to growl.” — Time magazine

“Frey’s ambition may have been to write the definitive novel of L.A., to do for that city what Joyce did for Dublin, Dos Passos did for Manhattan or Durrell did for Alexandria. If so, he may have succeeded. . . . Bright Shiny Morning reads quickly, has great dialogue and some expertly paced dramatic moments, and teaches you more about L.A. than you ever knew.” — The Washington Post

“If, despite the scandal, you loved A Million Little Pieces, you might want to devour Bright Shiny Morning. Like its author, it can be called many things, but never boring. Or timid.” — USA Today

“A novel to reckon with, a tale of hopes and dreams and second chances. . . . A heartfelt homage to American dreamers, to the hope of re-invention and redemption. . . . Frey has given his novel a deeply spiritual subtext, and prayers, like dreams, rise up above the city in a kind of spiritual smog. . . . In James Frey’s new world, we see what America has become—for better, for worse.” — The New Orleans Times-Picayune

“Frey’s sprawling narrative is brimming with energy, tragedy, and the endless travails and dreams of living in Los Angeles. . . . Frey is a novelist of compassion and unique vision. If there are second acts in American lives, he deserves one.” — Boston Globe