Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
2022
- nyt:combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction=2022-11-20
- television comedies
- actors, biography
- drug addicts
- substance abuse
- personal memoirs
The story
“Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty.” So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us... and so much more. In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety.
What it’s like
Frank, conversational first-person voice that reads like being talked to across a kitchen table, with the self-deprecating jokes landing quickly and the sadder passages written plainly, without ornament. The sensory world is mostly remembered rooms: a Montreal childhood, tennis courts, hotel corridors, soundstages and green rooms, hospital wards and rehab bedrooms, rendered in brisk, specific detail rather than lush description. Its mood is wry melancholy with a steadying warmth, the sort of book you pick up for a rainy Sunday or a long-haul flight and read in long, easy stretches, with short chapters that make stopping simple. Pacing moves back and forth across decades, so childhood scenes sit against later crises, and the emotional arc is a man slowly reckoning with a restless need for approval and the emptiness it left, arriving at a hard-won, unglamorous sobriety. Intensity is moderate: frequent references to heavy drinking, drug use, overdoses and a near-fatal medical emergency are described frankly and sometimes graphically in hospital detail, but there is no sexual content and no violence beyond the self-inflicted kind. Recommended for readers who enjoy candid celebrity memoir, fans of the sitcom who want its back story, and anyone who wants an honest, funny account of addiction and recovery.
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