THE LAST WORD MIRIAM R. KRAMER
THE ONE ABOUT ...
Mat
thew
perry Could you be any more brutally honest? Matthew Perry got his big break in 1994 when he and his four costars became television superstars with the advent of Friends, one of the most beloved sitcoms in TV history. With the publication of his recent memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing; Perry bares his soul and lifelong trauma. This extraordinarily raw memoir recounts not only the story of his life as a Generation X emblem and beloved actor, but also his terrible battle with addiction and the ways in which he has come to terms with it. Matthew Perry grew up in Canada with his mother until age fifteen, a nationally ranked tennis player who felt a huge hole inside that was partially a result of his parents’ early divorce. His father, John, an American musician, separated from his mother, Suzanne, a beauty queen. His father became an actor who lived in California. His mother, a respected journalist, served as press secretary for 12 December 2022
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir By Matthew Perry Flatiron. 272 pp. $29.99 Published Nov. 2022. Pierre Trudeau, former prime minister of Canada. Perry marked his childhood and adolescence with a longing for the stability and security that he had never experienced. Known for his tennis prowess, he never found it a means to establishing a sense of identity and self-worth. With his mother’s high profile job traveling with the
Canadian prime minister, he often felt abandoned and always on edge. He moved to live with his father in Los Angeles when he was fifteen. In hindsight, as an adult, he views his parents with love and respect for doing the best they could as very young people raising him, and for sticking by him during his stints in rehab and in the hospital. To get attention and please his mother on the occasions she was at home, Perry became an entertainer who joked, did pratfalls, and made witty remarks. (Chandler Bing!) When she remarried and had more children, he loved his siblings, but felt as if he were on the outside looking in. His arguments with his mother progressed when he was a teenager, so he left to live with his father in Los Angeles. When Perry first took a drink
himself growing up as someone with an inability to enjoy anything while at the same time an excitement addict, one who was perfectly primed to experience the progression of alcohol and drug dependance. He even says that had he not had substances to alleviate his emptiness and anxiety, he might not have survived his twenties, regardless of how much they have damaged him in the long run. Acting also allowed him to feel the adrenaline of excitement, of hearing people laugh when he was on stage. In some ways it was another drug, albeit a harmless one. It allowed him to become another person, since he felt inadequate as himself. He thought that if he became rich, famous, and successful, all his problems would be solved, so he worked as hard as he could to get there.
he received everything that he had wished for, and then found that it was not enough. of alcohol at fourteen, everything changed for him. For the first time in his life, nothing bothered him. He felt whole and peaceful. He had encountered one of the Band-Aids that would initially help him but eventually heed his progress in life, if not in his career. Perry describes
When he auditioned for Friends and got his dream job, he received everything that he had wished for, and then found that it was not enough. At a wonderful workplace with colleagues he cared about and respected, he was THE LAST WORD > PAGE 13
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