Writers who have been exposed as fabulists and plagiarizers must squirm every time something newsworthy comes along that reminds other journalists of their disgraced colleagues. The most recent forum for public shaming comes in reviews for the movie The Hoax, which is about to come out in theaters. It's the story of Clifford Irving, who deceived editors into thinking that he had somehow gained the trust of the reclusive Howard Hughes and was working on his biography. Here's how the New York Times starts its review of the movie:

The literary and journalistic frauds of the present era—the fudgings, thefts and fabulations of James Frey, Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Kaavya Viswanathan and their sorry ilk—are small potatoes compared to the work of Clifford Irving.

In most reviews, it's Million Little Pieces author Frey who receives the brunt of the dumping, perhaps as his endeavor—a partially made-up life story—is most similar to what Irving was trying to pawn off. Impressively, many reviewers were able to add injury to insult by suggesting that Frey was not only a fabulist, but an unimpressive one at that.

Newsday
James Frey? Small potatoes.

Entertainment Weekly
The two-bit distortions in A Million Little Pieces that landed squirming memoirist James Frey on Oprah Winfrey's couch of shame last year were chump change compared with the million-dollar lies served up by Clifford Irving some 35 years ago.

Contact Music
The Hoax offers a portrait of such a con artist, a real-life fabulist who makes James Frey (the disgraced "non-fiction" writer behind 2003's A Million Little Pieces) and his shenanigans look like chump change.

Salon
Making up your own autobiography, à la James Frey, is for wimps.

Monsters and Critics
It makes James Frey’s pathetic effort look like a Sunday school picnic.

Newsweek
James Frey was a piker compared with Clifford Irving: the minor-league fibs of "A Million Little Pieces" are child's play next to the brilliant and almost successful fraud Irving perpetrated in 1971.

Toronto Sun
Long before Oprah's book club, back when A Million Little Pieces was still a glimmer in James Frey's diapers, there was The Autobiography of Howard Hughes.
I'm not sure what to say about the headline of this piece.

Related in Gelf
An interview with William Bastone, who headed the team from The Smoking Gun that uncovered Frey's deception.