My Friend Leonard [Paperback]

i'm guessing most people will be coming to this book having read "a million pieces", frey's first memoir, and this book picks up where a million pieces left off with frey coming to the end of his prison sentence for his various drug and alcohol fueled activities.

but it would be wrong to assume that this is going to be more of the same. where a million pieces was a fiercely angry and often unpleasantly vivid account of frey's struggles with crack and alcohol, my friend leonard takes a lighter tone as it deals with the subjects of friendship and rebuilding and it's certainly no worse for the change of emphasis.

frey still has a great turn of phrase, a enormously readable style and critically, a story to tell. as the title suggests, at the centre of the book are his friendship with fellow addict and west coast mob boss leonard who he met in rehab, but it also takes in frey's relationship with his girlfriend from rehab lily, and his attempts to assemble some sort of adult life following a decade of alcohol and drug abuse that started in his teens.

one thing that concerned me a little about this book as i started reading was that the last couple of pages of a million little pieces summarise what happens to most of the characters frey meets in rehab, leonard and, in particular, lilly included. yet ultimately that does not massively detract from what happens in this book. this is a book not about what finally happens but about how everyone gets to where they end up, and despite knowing elements of the ending it's none the less powerful - as with great newspaper journalism the headline only whets your appetite for the full story.

through the book, frey tells his and his friends' stories with the same humour, affection and honesty that ran through his first book and it has the same compelling, readable quality. where it lacks the shock value, the warmth more than compensates.

for anyone who hasn't read a million little pieces, go read that first and then come back... you won't regret buying both.

After reading the final page of "A Million Little Pieces" I thought, how is he going to top that?! After starting to read "My Friend Loenard" and becoming addicted to James & his world all over again, it was obvious this book was going to be another WOW read!

I found this book even more compelling and addictive and lovable than his first. The twists it takes are shocking, yet you feel a sympathy and love for the characters still.

I have enjoyed my journey through James' world and I thank him for allowing me in.

There is however one disappointment with this book. In the final pages of "A Million Little Pieces" we learn about what happens after and that spoils it a little when reading "My Friend Leonard" as you know what's going to happen. However, the way in which James writes, makes up for this disappointment.

When's the third?!?!?!?!?

James Frey is a controversial figure. His first book, a Million Little Pieces, was quietly received before word of mouth snowballed sales into thousands. The crescendo was reached by the book appearing as part of Oprah's `book club'. Millions read Frey's story of reaching rock bottom, scrabbling and scratching in the dirt before a raw, real redemption. And then success inevitably brought suspicion. Journalists took a cynical comb to the story, and decided that James Frey was a liar. His story didn't stack up. His sufferings were faked, his pains embellished and his difficulties dreamt. Now in addition to being a drug addicted, alcoholic criminal he was a lying, drug addicted, alcoholic criminal. Or worse still, he was just a liar. And for the author of a work of biographical non-fiction that is a problem.

I loved a Million Little Pieces. I loved how someone completely messed up could produce a work of such harrowing, yet moving beauty. I loved the style, how the prose was as rough and jagged and real as the author. I loved how even someone who had messed up their lives really badly could be saved. For someone suffering from his own demons it was a message I needed and absorbed. So when it seemed that the story was fake it ruined the message. The raw truth, the honesty and plunging lows had made me love the book. The revelation that it was fiction made me think twice. And so I had stayed away from My Friend Leonard, the follow up to a Million Little Pieces. It was over a year after its release before I would come to read it.

I realised that Frey's dishonesty was going to be an issue from the book by juxtaposing the `disclaimer' on the first few pages with the opening line. In the disclaimer Frey explains that the book is a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, and in particular that "I did not spend 90 days in jail and Porterhouse is a fictional character." This is then followed by Chapter 1. "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." But I decided to read on.

And now I am glad I did. Because not only is My Friend Leonard a fine book, it enabled me to appreciate his original, and so-far best work, without thinking the worst of the author.

The book covers the period of Frey's life from leaving the rehabilitation centre, through prison and over the following years as he slowly rebuilds a seemingly irreparable life. We last saw Frey stabilising at the rehab centre, but this was stabilisation from a desperate position. Over the course of My Friend Leonard we see how Frey manages to overcome the manifest temptations to return to his former life of addiction, and forges a new life. It is a book that shows the importance of friendship, the lengths people can go to help others, and just how resilient man can be even when faced with the most impossible tragedies and difficulties.