Are publishers responsible for authors' fabrications?

A day after Oprah Winfrey lambasted James Frey on national television over the fabrications in his book about his drug-addicted youth, the publishing industry was buzzing over the event and the key question it raises: How much responsibility do publishers have to ensure that the memoirs they publish are accurate?

The continuing success of ''A Million Little Pieces" -- it is No. 1 again on Sunday's New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list -- also raises the question of why people are so easily deceived when a story meets their longing for a tale of redemption.

Some publishers dispute Winfrey's statement that when publishers consider a memoir they should carry out the same fact-checking process expected of newspapers and magazines.

''The whole basis of the author/publisher relationship is built on trust," said Jonathan Galassi, publisher and editor in chief of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ''The author warrants that nothing is false or misleading in the text. That is fundamental. The publisher is not a policeman, going around and checking on the author. . . . We're all going to have to pull up our socks, but we can't go overboard. We're doing two memoirs this spring, and I don't plan to call [the authors] and grill them about the details."

Others take a more critical view. ''This will make everybody pay closer attention to the smell test," said Wendy J. Strothman, Boston-based literary agent and former vice president of Houghton Mifflin Co. ''Does it smell right? With everyone I have signed up for a memoir, I have a long conversation with them before taking them on, to see if I trust them. If people get wind that things aren't adding up, then it is the publisher's responsibility to investigate that."

During her grilling Thursday of Frey and Doubleday publisher Nan Talese, Winfrey spoke as though ''A Million Little Pieces" was obviously incredible and should have seemed so to Doubleday. Yet she glossed over her own credulity by saying her producers had believed in the book and that thousands of deeply moved viewers had e-mailed her to praise it. ''My judgment was clouded," she said. It was the online publication The Smoking Gun that first reported, earlier this month, that Frey had fabricated much of the book.

Some people make the point that Talese, Winfrey, and millions of others probably swallowed Frey's hard-to-believe tales of his wild youth because it's just the kind of story we all want to hear.

''It reminded me of Jerzy Kosinski's book 'The Painted Bird,' " said Lawrence L. Langer of Newton, author of ''Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory." ''None of it was true. It also reminded me of Binjamin Wilkomirski," whose 1995 Holocaust memoir, ''Fragments," was exposed as a hoax.

''I wrestled with the question of why so many Holocaust survivors rushed to support him, when there was evidence in the text that it was fiction," Langer said. ''It taught me that people want to believe in stories of pain and recovery, and don't ask questions. We have an instinct to convert pain into hope, the unbearable into the tolerable. Everyone wants to read it because life is supposed to be that way."

Michael Vincent Miller, an author and psychotherapist, says readers naturally root for the character who has overcome adversity. ''The comeback kid is one our most deeply held myths," he says.

Doubleday issued a statement of apology Thursday for ''unintentional confusion surrounding publication of 'A Million Little Pieces,' " and said future printings will include new notes from the publisher and the author. Riverhead Books, the publisher of ''My Friend Leonard," the sequel to ''A Million Little Pieces," said no decisions have been made about changes to or remarketing of that memoir, which is also a bestseller. Frey also has a novel scheduled to be published next year, though Riverhead issued a statement Thursday saying the deal is ''under discussion."

Meanwhile, the publisher of two memoirs by Nasdijj, an award-winning author whose identity has been strongly challenged, said yesterday that it would no longer ship his books. The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C., reported yesterday that Nasdijj's Social Security number matched the number of Timothy P. Barrus, who had a prior career writing gay pornography.

Notwithstanding Winfrey's outrage, booksellers say buyers are not complaining or demanding their money back after purchasing Frey's book.

''We haven't heard a thing," said Jane Dawson, co-owner of Porter Square Books in Cambridge, although she expects sales to drop off. Dawson said people don't have the same expectation of detailed accuracy in a memoir that they have of a newspaper story. ''Years ago [aviatrix] Beryl Markham wrote a memoir [''West With the Night"]. Allegedly, not everything in it was true. Some people in my book club felt betrayed and didn't want to read it any more. But it didn't bother me, because it was such a wonderful story."