RIP Jennifer Frey

The mortgage stuff wasn't just she chose a very stupid refinance because she was an alcoholic with diminishing job opportunities. It was presented as part of the larger alleged mortgage malfeasance.

The way it was written wasn't about her, it was about the mortgage crisis.

 

Oh, who cares. A story that good, and now people demand perfection?

 

She was spiraling. She couldn't stop drinking, couldn't pay her bills, had been in and out of rehab and was using pills not prescribed for bipolar.
Writes the author, "She talked about suicide often. She was living alone in the house, which had been foreclosed on and sold at auction. But Frey was refusing to leave ... Frey, alone and very damaged, was less able than most Countrywide victims to recover. The predatory loan settlement had forced Bank of America to set up programs to assist those who’d fallen prey to Countrywide’s schemes. Frey did not take advantage of any of those programs, her friend told me, or make any obvious effort to save her home."
HOW is that political in any way? It's a fair description of Jennifer's state of mind two years ago. Seems the author did everything possible to understand that state of mind, though 75 percent of the piece was about Jennifer when she was extraordinary, when we only saw her brilliance as a journalist and the fantastic fun she always seemed to be having.
I'd have preferred the headline to read: The Writer Who Was Too Alive To Live.

 

Does her daughter know who her father is?

 

I find it sad that so many people loved her parties and thought she was a cool person, but she didn't seem to have true friends.

Alcohol can be a very bad thing. I wonder if any of the journalists or others at her who attended her parties realized or cared one iota that they were enabling her behavior.

As far as I know, I never crossed paths with her, but it seems like she was a brilliant journalist with some messed up judgment, not necessarily at the end of her life. It's too bad no one, seemingly, cared enough about her to help her before it was too late. It sounds like they were too busy drinking with her.

Wonder what conditions led to the loss of custody of her daughter, and when that happened.

 

All respect, but you are very wrong. I was just an acquaintance, but I know enough to say that Jennifer had some very true friends through her very last day. It's insulting to them to judge from afar what they did for her. I'm pretty sure the author of this piece tried to portray that depth, and for different reasons he came to road blocks. Maybe, and I'm just guessing here, some of her true friends didn't want to talk about what they did for her, and why, out of respect for her family, or maybe because they knew Jennifer would not want them to talk about her when she was gone.
From a journalistic level, I think it's safe to say the author ran up against some significant road blocks (including her family) and was still able to report and write an amazing piece.

 

I apologize for sounding like I am insulting her true friends. Not my intention at all. Glad to know she did have true friends, and any perceived judgment is not be directed to them at all.

The willingness of what sounds like a lot of people to join her in the partying is what is sad to me. Our culture encourages over-imbibing and it's portrayed as being the cool thing to do. But it can easily spiral out of control.

 

She likely presented as a functioning alcoholic, with the manic side of her bipolar giving her the energy to keep up for a long time until the fall. Driving to Louisville, partying all of Derby night and then hoofing it back to Cincy for a (very likely) 1:05 pm first pitch Sunday? And that was when she was on the Mets beat, and thus still a rising star, so presumably her work didn't suffer.

 

It puts her personal situation in the context of Countrywide's overall actions. It labels her a victim. That's how it's political. Her problem wasn't a stretch of bad luck or a manipulative lender. She needed money and made a bad decision because she was an alcoholic. It had nothing to do with the larger Countrywide mess.

 

She had no "Off" switch, which I can attest to. Once you start something you push it to the furthest reaches of the galaxy ... and then keep on going.

 

Great reporting on a touchy, tough subject.
Piece would've benefitted greatly from the voices of the peers who truly lived her same dynamic -- Christine Brennan, Sally Jenkins, Selena Roberts, Linda Robertson, female editors, all of whom saw Jennifer up close, knew her talents and (some of whom) had great reservations about her professional conduct.
It's no surprise that the voices of the dazzled are almost all male. Jennifer bought into and so legitimized the stale romantic writerly persona, and appealed to the "Hey, we're writers and...drinking! This is like Hemingway and F. Scott!' mentality that we all carry in large doses or small. Brassy and fun, a dynamo and analytically quite sharp, she was crushingly dull with a drink in her hand. Yes, she was an alcoholic, and that was the driver. But there was also always this sense of performance, of self-regarding antics engaged in mostly for the sake of talking about it later. The instant you're sure you're the life of the party -- and Jennifer always knew, always had to be -- that party begins to die.
People say that she was smartest person they'd ever met? Maybe. You definitely saw her brains on the page. But I always walked away thinking she was the least interesting smart person I'd ever met. Her mind -- unlike so many in the newsrooms she occupied -- didn't make quirky off-beat connections, or spin down the brilliant, unexpected byways, or burn with curiosity about life outside her orbit. Her conversations vibed with far more I WANT than I WONDER -- which, of course, is the addict's curse.
Yes she was ill, the most openly self-destructive person I've ever met. But at least Jennifer had the consolations of talent, work, travel, high regard and good company. The tragedy lies in her daughter, who grew up knowing only illness then and is left only emptiness now, and who will spend a life trying against all odds to dig herself out.