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52 pages 1 hour read

Matthew Perry

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2022

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Foreword-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Foreword

Content Warning: This guide includes descriptions of substance use and addiction.

Friends star Lisa Kudrow pays tribute to Matthew Perry’s humor and intelligence. She describes how uncomfortable it made her in the past when members of the press—alluding to Perry’s struggles with addiction—asked her how he was doing. She was uncomfortable with the question for two related reasons: First, she didn’t really know how he was doing, since he was private about the details of his addiction. Second, and most importantly, it wasn’t her story to tell. This book, Kudrow says, is Perry’s chance to speak for himself, telling the full story of his addiction and recovery as only he can tell it.

Prologue Summary

The author introduces himself by telling, in largely humorous style, the story of one of the most harrowing experiences in his life. He was 49 years old at the time of the incident, undergoing one of numerous attempts at drug and alcohol rehabilitation in a Californian treatment center. In the process of withdrawal from Xanax, Perry had been constipated for 10 days with unbearable abdominal pain. His friend and assistant, Erin, declared she was taking him to the hospital. The center’s counselors tried to stop them, claiming Perry was displaying “drug-seeking behavior” (5).

At the hospital, Perry fell into a coma and vomited into his breathing tube, causing pneumonia. His colon also ruptured. During the seven-hour surgery that followed, Perry’s family learned he had “a two percent chance” of survival (8). The author remained in a coma for six weeks after the operation. His mother, sisters, and Erin stayed by his side during that time. On regaining consciousness, Perry sobbed when he realized that his addiction had almost killed him. He learned that surgeons had fitted a temporary colostomy bag, and he still has an intestinal fistula that could not be located. Perry finally left the hospital after five months.

The author expresses gratitude for his wealth and fame but states they did not solve his problems. Describing his lifelong sense of emptiness, he admits he could not enjoy success without drinking or drugs. Perry primarily wrote his memoir for readers also struggling with addiction.

Chapter 1 Summary: “The View”

Perry is 52 years old as he writes his memoir. He owns a house overlooking the ocean in the Pacific Palisades, west of Los Angeles. Despite craving a life partner, he remains single, having ended many relationships with women due to his profound fear of rejection. He tells the story of his childhood.

Perry’s parents met in 1967 at the Canadian University beauty pageant in Ontario. Suzanne Langford was the previous year’s winner, and John Bennett Perry was the leader of the Serendipity Singers. Both were, according to Perry, uncommonly attractive, and they quickly fell in love. In 1969, 21-year-old Suzanne gave birth to Matthew during a snowstorm. He often had colic, and a doctor prescribed phenobarbital (a barbiturate) to help him sleep.

The pair separated when Perry was nine months old. After leaving Suzanne and the baby with her parents, John Bennett Perry moved to California to pursue his dream of being an actor. Perry visited his father in California for the first time at age five. His mother sent him as an “unaccompanied minor” on a flight from Montreal to Los Angeles, and Perry recalls his terror on the flight and the relief he felt when he finally saw the lights of Los Angeles below, indicating that he would soon be with his father.

During Perry’s childhood, his mother worked long hours as press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Due to her beauty and charisma, she became a minor celebrity. As a boy, Perry felt resentful of the all-consuming nature of her work, and the adult Perry claims to have first developed his comedic skills in a childhood effort to win his mother’s attention. His mother’s job required frequent travel, and Perry recalls that whenever he saw a plane flying overhead while his mother was away, he would ask his grandmother whether she was on board.

A lonely child, Perry filled his time by playing tennis. He and his mother moved house frequently. Although his father called every Sunday, he was present on TV more than in person. Perry recalls the confusion he felt seeing his father in Old Spice aftershave commercials with a younger actor playing his son. On the rare occasions they were together, Perry pretended to be Batman and cast his father as Superman. Every birthday, he wished for his parents to reconcile.

Perry’s mother switched careers, becoming a news anchor on Canadian television. She then married broadcast journalist Keith Morrison. Suzanne and Keith had two daughters together: Caitlin and Emily. Perry loved his sisters but increasingly felt like an outsider in the family. His grades declined, he began smoking, and he beat up the Canadian Prime Minister’s son, Justin (the future Canadian Prime Minister).

Perry got the lead role in a play at his all-boys secondary school in Ottawa. Enjoying the onstage attention, he continued acting in school productions. Perry was good friends with brothers Chris and Brian Murray, and the three boys developed a distinctive style of talking, making comments like “Could it be any hotter?” (31). By the age of 14, Perry was a nationally ranked tennis player and also had his first taste of alcohol. He drank a bottle of wine while the Murray brothers consumed a six-pack of beer. The brothers were soon vomiting, but Perry felt a sense of contentment as if all his issues had disappeared. At the age of fifteen, to the sorrow of his mother and grandparents, he decided to live with his father and his father’s new wife in Los Angeles.

“New York”

The author returns to his $20 million apartment after surgery on his ruptured colon. His surgery scar causes only minor discomfort, but he fakes pain to obtain OxyContin. A doctor prescribes 80 milligrams a day. When Perry’s tolerance to the drug rises, the doctor refuses to prescribe a higher dose, so he contacts a drug dealer. Erin and a sober companion are staying with him, so Perry tries to sneak out of his 40th-floor apartment. His companions realize his intentions and insist he needs further addiction treatment.

Perry’s colostomy bag often breaks at night, covering him in feces. He is waiting for a second surgery to remove the bag. The author breaks his front teeth on a slice of toast. At a new treatment center, he is given Subutex to replace OxyContin. Perry craves cigarettes and feels as if he is in prison. Going to the stairwell, he repeatedly hits his head against the wall until he is covered in blood.

Foreword-Chapter 1 Analysis

The Prologue establishes the context and focus of Perry’s memoir. The author begins with the story of his “exploding colon” to convey how profoundly addiction has impacted his life. The terse declaration “I should be dead” dramatically emphasizes how close substance use has come to killing him (1). Perry sees meaning in his survival against the odds, believing he is intended to share his experiences. He clarifies that the purpose of his memoir is to help others living with addiction.

From the start of the text, Perry establishes his authorial style. Despite the serious subject matter, his narrative voice is conversational and wryly humorous. For example, when describing falling into a coma, he states, “Please note: for the next few paragraphs, this book will be a biography rather than a memoir because I was no longer there” (7). The author’s introduction of himself as “Matty” to his friends suggests a distinction between Matthew Perry, the celebrity, and his authentic self. Meanwhile, his assertion that readers may know him “by another name” acknowledges that many people cannot distinguish between Perry and Chandler Bing—his character in Friends (1).

In Chapter 1, Perry’s description of his childhood both explains and foreshadows much of his adult behavior. Several of the book’s themes and symbols are also introduced. The roots of Perry’s adult Fear of Abandonment are visible in this chapter, as he feels abandoned first by his father and then by his mother. After his abrupt departure to Los Angeles, Perry’s father is both absent and surreally present due to his appearances in the “Old Spice” ad, in which he plays another boy’s father. Meanwhile, Perry must share his mother’s attention with the Canadian prime minister and his stepfather. Recounting the story of flying from Montreal to Los Angeles as a five-year-old, the author introduces the concept of the “unaccompanied minor.” As an adult, Perry still identifies himself as an “unaccompanied minor,” illustrating his “lifelong feeling of abandonment” (15). The author reveals that he considered using the phrase as the title for his memoir.

The author sees the origins of his later development and behavior in events that occurred during his formative years. He asserts that his fear of being abandoned and alone has cost him “hundreds of thousands of dollars […] in therapy” (14). It also lies at the root of his compulsion to end relationships with women before they can abandon him. Perry associates his attraction to houses boasting impressive views with his experience as an unaccompanied minor. They remind him of the comfort he felt looking down on Los Angeles and knowing his father was waiting for him. The author identifies his move from Canada to Los Angeles at age 15 as the start of his urge for “a big geographic” at times of crisis (33). This concept becomes a recurring symbol in the memoir as Perry frequently moves houses in an attempt to escape his problems.

In his attempts to gain his mother’s attention through “pratfalls, quick one-liners,” etc. (25), Perry sees the roots of his development as a comic actor. He also outlines how his friendship with the Murray brothers influenced his later portrayal of Chandler in Friends. Perry credits his friends for helping develop the distinctive style of speech his character became known for. However, he also notes that the friendship marked the beginning of his addiction to alcohol. Describing drinking with his friends, aged 14, Perry observes that there was already a difference between his reaction to alcohol and that of other people. While the Murray brothers became ill, he felt he had discovered the solution to his problems.

Perry’s conflicted feelings toward his parents are evident throughout this chapter. The author expresses anger at the traumatic effects of being an “unaccompanied minor.” He also suggests the prescription of phenobarbital to help him sleep during infancy may have triggered his lifelong struggle with insomnia and addiction. At the same time, Perry acknowledges that, during the 1970s, it was not unusual to send children alone on flights or to give babies barbiturates. The author admits that he is prone to “self-pity” and the desire to blame other people for his problems, including his “loving, well-intentioned parents” (16). Despite his early abandonment of him, Perry credits his father with eventually becoming a “wonderful” parent. He also recognizes that his mother was only 21 when she was left alone to raise him. Nevertheless, he makes it clear that some of his parents’ decisions damaged him.

In this first section, the author establishes the structure of his memoir, interspersing the chapters with an “Interlude.” The use of Interludes disrupts the roughly chronological order of the narrative with brief insights into episodes of Perry’s life. The first Interlude continues events from the Prologue and emphasizes one of the book’s themes: The Nature of Addiction. Despite almost dying from opioid use, the author speaks of the lengths he went to obtain more drugs after leaving the hospital. Perry’s account of his illogical actions and the way he deceives others is frank, highlighting the overwhelming compulsion of addiction. He also reveals the physical effects of substance use, detailing the indignity of a colostomy bag that breaks every night and the loss of his teeth. In doing so, he subverts the trope of a glamorous celebrity life story.

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