The Queen of Talk Declined to Speak

Kitty Kelleys name will not be showing up on any of Oprah Winfreys lists of her favorite things. Heres one reason: If Ms. Kelleys cage-match Winfrey biography is to be believed, Ms. Winfrey has begged to learn the identity and background of her biological father. Her relatives wont tell her. But on July 30, 2007, Ms. Kelley pried it out of one of them. This coup, the only real Gotcha! in Ms. Kelleys Oprah, is the kind of reportorial discovery on which Ms. Kelley has built her giant-killer reputation.

Clay Blackmore

Kitty Kelley

Marty Lederhandler/Associated Press

Oprah Winfrey in 1987 with the Emmy she won that year.

In a rare show of discretion, Ms. Kelley claims to be keeping this secret from the world until Ms. Winfrey can extract it firsthand from her mother, Vernita Lee. Its far more typical of Ms. Kelley to dish about how Ms. Lee cant get her famous daughter on the phone. She also quotes Vernon Winfrey, who raised the future mogul and media queen as his daughter, as having said, I need her show like a hog needs a holiday.

Since Ms. Kelley is well aware that there is such a thing as Oprah omertà and that it is why unauthorized Winfrey books (like one proposed by Mr. Winfrey) dont ordinarily get written, let alone published she is eager to appear authoritative about her research and reporting. How else to explain the photograph of Vernon Winfrey whispering into Ms. Kelleys ear as proof that he talked to her?

She may be admired by the world, but I know the truth, Mr. Winfrey told Ms. Kelley. So does God and so does Oprah. Two of us remain ashamed.

Shame: its good for a zinger but otherwise an alien concept to Ms. Kelley. That Ms. Winfrey refused to cooperate with this book has done nothing to cramp the authors style. In the end it was Oprah herself who turned out to be a major source of information, Ms. Kelley claims in a foreword, going on to explain that Oprah draws on 25 years worth of newspaper, magazine, television and radio interviews, all of which have been broken down by names, dates and topics for a total of 2,732 files. With a harrumph of gravitas, she adds that from this resource I was able to use Oprahs own words with surety.

Unfortunately the books closing acknowledgments change the number of those files to 2,932. Goodbye to the claim that Oprah is accurate in every detail.

The larger problem with Ms. Kelleys reportorial Cuisinart is that its mash-up of Winfrey voices is so disjointed. The circumstances of a conversation shape what is said, especially with someone who can affect as many different personae high, low, black, not so black, tearful, bullying, tawdry, lofty as Ms. Winfrey can. But its never clear here to whom Ms. Winfrey was talking unless she was conducting an interview with, say, Michael Jackson. Her ability to ask questions like Why do you always grab your crotch? has helped make her whatever she is today, even if Ms. Kelley cannot explain why Ms. Winfrey is so enduringly popular. After some hollow authorial claims of respect and admiration, Oprah just aims for the jugular. It doesnt draw *lo**.

Perhaps its too late for a Winfrey tell-all. She has already said way too much about herself, to the point that this book abounds in gruesome displays of vanity. (I really like me, I really do. When you mention great actresses, youll have to say my name. I know people really really love me, love me, love me.) Her devotees are probably too loyal to enjoy Ms. Kelleys mean streak. (A landscape gardener tells Ms. Kelley that Oprah, the poor thing, got too fat to use the pool at her Indiana farm for fear of being photographed by paparazzi.)

Some of the best-known parts of her story, like the dieting, have literally been discussed ad nauseam. And why would lengthy rehashes of well-known embar****ments (e.g. the James Frey/A Million Little Pieces flap) be interesting? Ms. Kelley simply replays the televised version. She has nothing new to add to these stories.

Nor does she know, for those who care, about the real nature of Ms. Winfreys close friendship with Gayle King and tenuous engagement to Stedman Graham. Without new information, she resorts to reprinting blind gossip-column items that suggest any and all of the above may be gay, unless of course they arent. The books use of innuendo and indirection is apparent in its index, which has only four entries under women: African American, film studios owned by, subordination of and lipstick lesbians.

In terms of sexual insight Ms. Kelley is left trying to extrapolate about the adult womans proclivities from the 40-year-old story of Ms. Winfreys having given birth to a baby at the age of 15. (The child lived for only a few weeks and might have been raised by Vernon and his wife had he survived.) And when it comes to gleaning wisdom from the tabloid topics that have appeared on Ms. Winfreys sleazier shows, Ms. Kelley doesnt do more than list them. As a glimpse of talk show history, Oprah does illustrate how the braver and classier Phil Donahue was eventually rendered obsolete by bottom-feeding competitors like Ms. Winfrey and Jerry Springer.

How did Ms. Winfrey leap from asking porn stars whether they got sore (during her early talk show career) to the grande dame status she enjoys today? Here Ms. Kelley does have something useful to impart: She knows a thing or two about diva behavior. So she describes Ms. Winfreys allusion to Kennedy family members as her relatives. She catalogs the loot at lavish Winfrey parties. She ticks off financial research even when its meaningless (records show that a researcher and a freelancer in Ms. Winfreys employ each contributed $250 to Senator Barack Obamas presidential campaign, perhaps at their bosss behest) and tsk-tsks about the vast sums thrown by Ms. Winfrey at her girls school in South Africa, where the staff was poorly vetted but the thread count on the dormitory sheets was a matter of record.

When did Ms. Winfrey swan into the V.I.P. room in the Twilight Zone? Perhaps when she began talking about herself in the third person. (Oprah does not walk. Oprah does not do stairs.) Perhaps when a television show staff member began kneeling to put the stars shoes on her. Perhaps when she first had a bathtub molded to fit her body. I think Im just becoming more of myself, Ms. Kelley quotes her as having said to someone, sometime, somewhere which is better than anybody can imagine.