• AP, Monday, January 30, 2006 2:28 PM

Yet another black eye for the book-publishing industry. On the heels of Oprah Winfrey's public flogging of memoirist James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, two newspapers appear to have revealed that the award-winning author of an Esquire magazine story and several acclaimed books is not in fact who he says he is. LA Weekly and The Charlotte News and Observer have both reported that Nasdijj, who said he was a Navajo Indian who had suffered a series of indignities and tragedies in his community, was in all likelihood a fake. They traced the writer's Social Security number to a white man, Timothy P. Barrus, who had a prior career writing gay pornography. Ballantine Books, which had published two titles by the writer, said it would no longer ship his books and would accept returns from retailers.  "This looks pretty conclusive," said a Ballantime spokesperson of the story in The News and Observer. Barrus, 55, has not responded to requests for interviews, and he did not acknowledge any wrongdoing at a post on his blog.

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