Call me crazy, but I don't think that the cover art really fits with the text. Try the first paragraph:
On my first day in jail, a three hundred pound man named Porterhouse hit me in the back of the head with a metal tray. I was standing in line for lunch and I didn't see it coming. I went down. When I got up, I turned around and I started throwing punches. I landed two or three before I got hit again, this time in the face. I went down again. I wiped blood away from my nose and my mouth and I got up I started throwing punches again. Porterhouse put me in a headlock and started choking me. He leaned toward my ear and said I'm gonna let you go. If you keep fighting me I will fucking hurt you bad. Stay down and I will leave you alone. He let go of me, and I stayed down.
This book is the follow-up to Frey's first book, A Million Little Pieces, which chronicled his time in rehab. My Friend Leonard picks up with James leaving rehab to serve a short stint in jail and then, after jail, trying to put the pieces of his life together and stay sober. The title character is a mobster that James met in rehab, a man that decides that James is his adopted son, a man that continues to support James (emotionally and sometimes financially) after they both re-enter the real world.
I loved this book. I loved the story--sometimes it would seem so unreal that I had to remind myself that it was a memoir, that it was true. I loved Leonard and Snapper. I loved James. I loved his writing style. He ran words together to describe mixed feelings in a way that I found extremely effective--in another, different book it wouldn't have worked, it would have felt lazy, but in this book it seemed right and perfect.
It made me cry--at some points my eyes would just well up and at others I would sob. I cried all over the damn book. Highly recommended.
Comments