The Gospel According to Prisco

My Friend Leonard by James Frey

I was a bookseller during those world weary days over the embattlement of the Oprah Book Club.  Do you remember, when Jonathan Franzen got selected by her O-liness, for The Corrections (another one I that sits at that discarded, wish I was a witty hipster pile, beneath David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I’ll get there someday, boys) and said, “No, thanks.  I want people to think this is a real book.”  And thus unravelled the O Readery.  Until she resurrected it with books by authors that were mostly dead, and so could not offer complaint.  

Well, along came a little drug addict memoir called A Million Little Pieces, with a memorable cover featuring a hand covered in those little tiny crunchy candy nubs.  Food on covers, always a good idear.  Because you should consume books, goddammit.  It was one of those, “I should really read that” books like Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors: A Memoir or anything by a Russian author.  But with the surge of Oprocity brought on, I felt it my civic duty to have a snooty opinion on it.

I read it.  I loved it. 

Sure it’s nothing new.  Sure it’s written in a kinetic almost autistic style with short bursting repetitive phrases or rambling run on narrative.  There’s no intensive, captivating plot.  But I really enjoyed it.   I thought it was what you would get if you took Trainspotting and ran it under frosty tap water for a couple days.  Bare bones, no clever dialogue, just a cold hard bitter narrative about the spoils of drug addiction.  And it was horrifying. 

Then came the little scandal where he meekly muttered, “The rumors of my drug rehab tale may have been slightly exaggerated.”  And all fucking hell broke loose.  You would have thought he said, “Where I said I did drugs?  You can replace that with ’raping babies with pediatric AIDS’.”  He got berated on Oprah (who then got slammed with the Towelie episode of South Park –  uuuuuh. Oprah’s vagina.  uuuuuuh.)  The publisher said anyone who wanted a refund was welcome to return it to their bookseller.

So of course it became a topic of discussion among prospective customers.  And of course, we were told to keep mum and discreet.  And of course, I couldn’t help but open my big fat mouth and let people know what I think.  It’s kinda, kinda what I do?

Fake or not, it’s a good story.  And frankly, I hope to god none of this shit really happened.  A human should not endure this much harrowing experience.  So, fine, maybe he tweeked some shit for the sake of story.  Who fucking cares?  It’s still a good book. 

And so, a sequel was put out, concerning Leonard, the aging mafioso who adopts Frey as his son in rehab, and spews forth song and dance and food and love.  And our tale concerns James Frey right after getting out of rehab, and promptly starting a self-imposed pennance in an Ohio penitentary.

My Friend Leonard is an interesting follow-up, but it just leaves a lingering bit of distaste in the mouth.  Sort of like eating pizza on the West Coast.  If you’ve eaten good pizza, you know what pizza is supposed to taste like, and it’s good.  But if you eat it out west, it’s sort of the same, but it’s just missing something.  It’s not as good as the original.

Same tells true here.  Leonard is a fabulous character, in every sense of the fabulous.  You love this guy.  He’s dangerous, charismatic, generous, fiesty, and geniuinely has love for his son. MY SON!  MY SON!  he cries out.  On every fucking page.  Over and over.  I mean, it’s cute, it’s adorable, he loves you.  We fucking get it.

And that’s the ultimate failing of the book.  It’s that, the story is both amusing and crushing.  It does an amazing job of capturing loss of loved ones, and the crushing allure of intoxication.  But Frey just beats you over the fucking head with it.  His life is essentially, I want to drink drug so badly it hurts.  I can control it.  I want to drink.  I want to drink.  My life sucks.  I miss her.  Through relationships and jobs and other cities, he constantly adheres to the constant need of constantly constant.  I mean, he wants him some booze and drugs. And he doesn’t want them.

Was that irritating?  Kind of lost you there for a moment?  That’s what happens in the book.  His free associative style doesn’t allow for punctuation, so when you’re up in his head, it’s fine.  Which is why it worked so well in A Million Little Pieces.  Which is why it doesn’t work when he’s out and living life on his own.

The book fails because Frey is a fucking boring mope.  Or he comes across that way.  I wouldn’t want to spend time with him.  He’s just a fucking Debbie Downer.  Yeah, he’s been through a lot, but the problem is he doesn’t know when he’s fucking won.  It’s the same thing that pissed me off with Into the Wild.  This kid is so fucking focused on his ideals (or in this case his addiction and what he’s lost) that he’s missing out on what’s around him.  And that my friends, is his friend Leonard.

Leonard has a saying, “When someone does something nice for you, you shut the fuck up and say thank you and you take it.”  That’s sort of what you should take from this book.  Appreciate life every day.  Which is a good message.

Ultimately, I liked it.  It’s just not nearly as good or awe-inspiring as A Million Little Pieces.  It’s definitely got a handle on grief and loss.  But you figure it out.  Over.  And over.  And over.

And this is over.