Fabrication constitutes fiction. Exaggeration turns fact to falsehood. Or maybe embellishing reality merely enhances what is already true.

But do readers expect the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them?

Television viewers who recently tuned in to Thursday edition of “Oprah” or the preceding “Larry King Live” expected honesty. More than two weeks after an Internet report accused James Frey of fabricating and embellishing a New York Times best seller, the author of “A Million Little Pieces” admitted to altering details.

“I have to say it is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped,” Oprah Winfrey told Frey on her show. “I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers. And I think, you know, it’s such a gift to have millions of people to read your work, and that bothers me greatly. And so now as I sit here today, I don’t know what is truth and I don’t know what isn’t.”

Frey’s book was selected for Oprah’s Book Club list last October. It has remained on the New York Times best sellers list for 17 weeks with 3.5 million copies printed. His second book, “My Friend Leonard,” has been on the list for 15 weeks.

The Smoking Gun Web site investigated aspects of Frey’s memoir, and provided evidence contradicting Frey’s accounts of warrants, arrests and time served in prison.

“Frey appears to have fictionalized his past to propel and sweeten the book’s already melodramatic narrative and help convince readers of his malevolence,” stated the Jan. 8 article.

Frey wrote that his love, Lilly, hung herself. That was a lie. Lilly slit her wrists.

Frey told Oprah all of the people in the book “existed,” even if he “altered things about all of them.””All the way through the book, I altered details about every single one of the characters to render them unidentifiable,” Frey said on the Oprah show.

Student readers seemed unfazed by the allegations. Senior communications major Dave Maurer was in the middle of the book when he heard about the controversy.

“The story is still very interesting, and I’m not too concerned if it’s nonfiction or fiction,” Maurer said. “Whether or not the majority of the book is false doesn’t matter to me, what matters is that it’s a gripping story.”

On the Jan. 11 episode of “Larry King Live,” Frey told King that only 18 of the 432-pages of his book were being scrutinized.

Some readers considered that enough to publish the book as fiction, while others agree that exaggeration is a part of the writing process, fiction or non-fiction.

“Ultimately, it depends on the reader and what the reader expects,” English professor Mark Hennelly said. “The everyday reader expects gospel, not gossip.”

Frey’s memoir was not the first book to be shrouded in fabrication controversy. In 1995, Binjamin Wilkomirski published his book entitled, “Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood,” a book of childhood Holocaust memories.

Wilkomirski’s account caused a positive reaction in the Jewish community and received many awards.

The validity of his memoir was called into question when historian Stefen Maechler was assigned by the publisher of “Fragments” to investigate the claims made in the book.

According to “The Wilkomirski Affair: A Study in Biographical Truth,” Maechler was given “unrestricted access to hundreds of government and personal documents, interviewed eyewitnesses and family members in seven countries and discovered facts that completely refute Wilkomirski’s book.”

“The important thing is, this has been done for hundreds of years and the public is always shocked,” Hennelly said.

Even the name “Binjamin Wilkomirski” was uncovered as fictitious. The author’s name remains unknown.

Despite the complete lack of evidence to support “Fragments,” it was published under nonfiction and was celebrated for its portrayal of internment camps during the Holocaust.

“I think that if a story is mostly true but slightly exaggerated, it’s still nonfiction,” said junior communications major Melissa Greiner. “Exaggerating is not the same as fiction. A fiction novel is something totally made up.”

“I don’t feel like I conned you guys,” Frey said in the Thursday Oprah interview.

That remains to be seen.

Lauren King can be reached at [email protected]