"Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing," Review

"Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing," Matthew Perry's memoir, presents a gripping narrative.

Perry is best known for his work as Chandler Bing on the hit television series "Friends." However, Perry's life was not all laughter and success. He has battled addiction for more than half his life. He invites readers into the dark places of this addiction, and reading (or listening) to his memoir is a captivating experience because of the beautiful prose, but also because of the harrowing intensity of the story.

Told with a rare blend of grit, grace, and humor, Perry's memoir is a page-turner you absolutely cannot put down. It is brimming with life—both the thrilling ups and the terrifying downs, and knowing that this presentation of life comes from one of our most gifted actors makes it all the more special and profound.

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Perry's autobiography chronicles a life lived in the limelight, with all the privileges that accompany it, yet tempered by incidents of profound unhappiness. The dark times are recounted without flinching, and the tone in which these recollections are rendered varies not only from chapter to chapter but also within a single chapter. Perry seems to have a knack for using words that almost force readers to see and feel what he did when the experience was fresh.

Perry's writing is often funny, as he has every right for it to be, considering the shared experiences and occurrences that make up his impressive résumé. But perhaps the single most impressive and striking feature of his writing is the ability to make a reader feel the events being shared.

A close second in "most impressive" features is the way Perry's writing communicates the serious message he has to tell.

Though Perry's writing is a model of careful, pleasingly artful prose, his attendant narrative voice—the voice one hears while reading—is much more intimate and accessible.

Suppose you could pluck Perry off the street at a moment's notice during the '90s or right now in the 2020s, and give him a bookish kind of microphone. In that case, he'd be perfectly capable of holding forth on the sorts of things he's written about—namely, his addled life as a drug addict and the more glorious bits featuring his rock-hard abs.

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He'd be perfectly capable of talking you right into a late-night space where you'd somehow feel, right along with him, a not-so-great high or a not-so-great low, a beautifully written story any way you slice it. And the slice Perry emphasizes is one that models addiction as a reality beneath the glamour of show business, and even long after that particular moment in the addict's life when he's more or less recovered.

One of the memoir's cornerstones is Perry's exploration of his relationships. He recounts his interactions with friends, lovers, and colleagues, blending fondness and regret. He speaks with gratitude and love of the people who have stood by him. Conversely, he recounts the relationships that were strained or shattered with a palpable ache, especially considering that many of these people were drawn into his addiction's orbit, namely, his parents and sister on the one hand, and Perry himself on the other. These interactions provide emotional depth to the audiobook's narrative, as well as some character sketches straight out of Perry's memory.

The other aspect of Perry's life that the memoir covers is his professional life. The majority of that section is concerned with "Friends," which is well-trod territory for Perry. But he handles it lovingly and with an engaging mix of charm and pride.

The memoir's central antagonist is nothing less than addiction.

From his first mention of it, Perry makes it abundantly clear that he has no intention of softening the reality of his experience. The litany of substances he has abused (or, as he prefers, "misused") is staggering in its breadth and depth, yet none of them, not even the third of a million pills he took over the course of a year, comes close to the devastation wrought by the "Big H," heroin.

Altering one's consciousness apparently holds a foremost place in Perry's top 10 list of terrible things to do to oneself, with or without (as he sometimes does) the inclusion of alcohol at the top.

To conclude, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing" is a memoir that works on many levels.

This is Matthew Perry's life, recounted with much more than just a surface-level familiarity. It is the path of a man who has achieved great things in his life, fallen to the bottom, and clawed his way back up—all the while maintaining a kind of dark humor that can only belong to him.

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Listening to Perry's voice in this audiobook carries a certain amount of inevitable emotional weight, not just because he passed so recently but because, in telling the story of his life, Perry has contrived a kind of brilliant inner narrative that leaves the listener with a deep appreciation of both the work and the man.