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    The Perfume Burned His Eyes
    The Perfume Burned His Eyes
    The Perfume Burned His Eyes
    Audiobook4 hours

    The Perfume Burned His Eyes

    Written by Michael Imperioli

    Narrated by Michael Imperioli

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Matthew is a sixteen-year-old living in Jackson Heights, Queens, in 1976. After he loses his two most important male role models, his father and grandfather, his mother uses her inheritance to uproot Matthew and herself to a posh apartment building in Manhattan. Although only three miles away from his boyhood home, "the city" is a completely new and strange world to Matthew.

    Matthew soon befriends (and becomes a quasi-assistant to) Lou Reed, who lives with his transgender girlfriend Rachel in the same building. The drug-addled, artistic/shamanic musician eventually becomes an unorthodox father figure to Matthew, who finds himself head over heels for the mysterious Veronica, a wise-beyond-her-years girl he meets at his new school.

    Written from the point of view of Matthew at age eighteen, two years after the story begins, the novel concludes with an epilogue in the year 2013, three days after Lou Reed's death, with Matthew in his fifties.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateApr 10, 2018
    ISBN9781684410675
    Author

    Michael Imperioli

    Michael Imperioli is best known for his starring role as Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos, which earned him an Outstanding Supporting Actor Emmy Award. He also wrote five episodes of the show and was co-screenwriter of the film Summer of Sam, directed by Spike Lee. Imperioli is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Perfume Burned His Eyes, and the short story ‘YASIRI’ in the anthology The Nicotine Chronicles, edited by Lee Child.

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    Reviews for The Perfume Burned His Eyes

    4/5

    51 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      In the past year I've read a memoir, a novel and two books of short stories written by celebrities and, not to mince words, they were vanity works and they each sucked to varying degrees. Accordingly, I wasn't expecting much from this book but I like the author's work as an actor so I gave it a try and I was very pleasantly surprised. In this amusing, charming, perceptive and touching coming of age novel, Matthew is telling the story of when he was 16 in approximately 1975 from the perspective of his 19 year old self. His mother has just inherited some money from her father and moves them from Queens, New York to a posh apartment building in Manhattan. Matthew is enrolled in a private school where he falls for Veronica, a classmate/witch/prostitute. He also meets the author's interpretation of Lou Reed who lives in Matthew's building and is a drug addled musician and songwriter who's girlfriend Rachel has an Adam's apple and stubble. Matthew is mesmerized by Lou and wants to please him, even if it involves driving a van across Manhattan with no drivers license or even experience driving. Things do not go well. He is also led into troubling experiences by Veronica. He concludes that Lou and Veronica shared "an acute sensitivity to human fragility", but some intense relationships have an expiration date.The experiences in this book felt so real that it really could have been a memoir. Sometimes the author did get a little carried away with teenaged hyperbole. "[the pita] was the most logical, delicious, and perfect food one could consume. Each component synchronized and synthesized into a complete, unified, and seamless thingness .... The sandwich was a microcosm of me and Veronica together in the macrocosm of New York City and all the universe beyond." However, for the most part Matthew sounded like a mature, intelligent, articulate and empathetic person. His memories were so specific. "Last week I was sitting by the window and a bus drove by. It's exhaust blended with the smell of the rain on asphalt and I was instantly transported to the very first time I stood outside your building. Waiting outside the door for you to come down after your voice, breathless and hurried, came through the intercom and said: 'One minute'." The author generally has a light touch and parts of the book made me laugh out loud (on a bus which was embarrassing). I'd like to read more by him. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
    • 3/5
      Not great literature. An okay story but nothing that interesting. Certainly not for anyone who is not a fan of Lou Reed; it won't make any sense.
    • 4/5
      Michel Imperioli, of "The Supranos" fame, has added author to his repertoire, with this fast-paced coming of age story set in Queens and Manhattan during the 1970's Part Catcher in the Rye and part "Mean Streets," this slender volume kept me turning the pages until the very end.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. It is a coming of age book of a young man in New York. It was mostly about the relationships that he was involved in. I thought the book was well-written, especially for a first novel. I hope the author continues to write. I would love more!
    • 4/5
      This is a coming of age of a young man who world is turned upside down when he lost his father and grandfather and is forced to move...new friends, new neighbors. I laughed and cried. Have to read more outside my comfort zone...
    • 4/5
      The Perfume Burned His Eyes????By Michael Imperioli2018Akashic / NYC***I'm waiting for my man***Growing up in Jackson Heights, Queens then abruptly moved to a high rise on E. 52nd St would definitely change a person's life, in many ways.Especially when you become friends with your new neighbor, Lou Reed, living with his cross dressing friend.Raw, sharp and illuminating coming of age story, that is an emotional and and wild carnival ride. The highs will make you w as not to raise your arms and scream; the lows you will feel in the pit of your stomach. Michael Imperioli is known previously for his work with Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, and has written episodes for the TV series 'The Sopranos'.Recommended...its a very short book.
    • 5/5
      The Perfume Burned His Eyes by Michael Imperioli is most noticeably a coming-of-age story and succeeds quite well as such. Yet it is also so much more, or at least can be so much more to many readers. For me, this was also about that time period and about the different masks we all wear for different people or different situations.I was close to the age of the protagonist at the same time so this speaks clearly to me about growing up at that time. If you were mid-teens in the mid 70s this will likely speak similarly to you. While most of us did not experience the same events (I know, that is stating the obvious) we probably experienced or saw friends experience similar events. Loss of a loved one, friendship with an older person, first wonderings about love with someone. And the questions these all generate: why, what does this or that mean, how should I respond? We learn to wear different masks as we navigate these relationships and, maybe more importantly, we begin to understand that the people we know also wear different masks. We become aware of how difficult it can be, regardless of who you are, to be one consistent person in every situation. Is that a positive or a negative? I don't know but I do know that we all do it and the sooner we realize it the sooner we can show empathy for others.It had been a long time since I had thought about Lou Reed and Rachel and this fictionalized look at that phase of Reed's life was fascinating for me and made me look up more. I don't really care for the idea of liking or disliking characters as a basis for judging a book since many unlikable characters have made for wonderful reading and likable characters have put me to sleep. I am more interested in whether the characters are believable in relation to their actions. So if something I think of as unlikely to happen in my world makes sense from the perspective of a character then I am happy. Imperioli gives these characters life and enough background to make the story plausible and enjoyable to read.I would recommend this to those who enjoy coming-of-age stories as well as readers who like immersive period pieces with famous real people as a character in the fictionalized world.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
    • 4/5
      The story starts with 16 year old Matthew in 1976. His estranged, bad example of a father dies, then his grandfather follows shortly. This plunges his mother into a depression that she treats by eating tranquilizers, but it also provides an inheritance that allows them to move uptown and into a fancy apartment building in New York City. When he takes a part time job as a delivery boy for a local Chinese restaurant, he discovers that the people who he thought were a homeless couple when he’d seen them in the lobby actually live in his building, just a couple of floors up. It is, in fact, Lou Reed and his trans girlfriend Rachel. When Reed takes Matthew on as an assistant, it’s down the rabbit hole for Matt. Adding to the surrealness of his life, he falls for a girl at school: Veronica, who is an outlier, a witch, and a part time prostitute. Between Reed and Veronica, Matthews coming of age is more abrupt than most people’s, and definitely weirder. Whether it’s driving a borrowed van having never driven before, accompanying Veronica on a trick, or watching Reed basically melt down, it’s a walk on the wild side. Matthew comes across as real and a sympathetic character. He’s been torn from his past life at a vulnerable point in his life. He’s smart. While the story takes place when he’s 16, it’s written from his POV at 18, and he looks at himself clearly and maturely. And, despite the grim subject matter, it’s funny. Four stars.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. What a grand effort with characters that really came alive off the pages. Michael Imperioli is a good, descriptive writer. There was a passage in the book regarding the suicide of his girlfriend that I found particularly poignant and insightful. Following his journey through characters of both his imagination and some based in fact was a trip I enjoyed very much.
    • 3/5
      Well, I really goofed on this book. I didn't recognize the author's name, and I didn’t know who Lou Reed was, one of the main characters. Where have I been? If you don’t know either: Michael Imperioli, the author, is an actor, best known as a character on The Sopranos. Lou Reed, was a famous singer from the 70s and 80s, and the title, The Perfume Burned His Eyes, comes from one of his songs. The story takes place when the narrator, Matthew, is in his teens, and Lou Reed is at a low point in his life and career. Matthew and his mother move from Queens to an upscale apartment and an upscale school in Manhattan. Lou Reed and his girlfriend live in the same building. In the truest sense, Matthew comes of age as he relates to Lou as well as to a lovely girl from his class, Veronica, who claims to be a witch and who turns tricks for spending money. He becomes acutely aware of the way others relate to the world, and he grows in his own strength and his own wisdom. Matthew’s view of the world is very much aligned with the city, in all its gritty glory. Finally, the world becomes too much for him and he loses touch with reality for a while. The Booklist reviewer calls him “Holden Caulfield without the cynicism.”Years later, Matthew meets up with Lou Reed again, and as he watches him perform magnificently, he realizes that they both have come far. “It made me see clear the fluid and idiosyncratic possibilities in our lives, or maybe more accurately: the fluidity and idiosyncrasy that is our lives. It made me see that there are escape routes out of hell, and if we are fortunate we can make a clean getaway and survive.”The Perfume Burned His Eyes is told completely from Matthew’s perspective. His mother is seldom in the picture, although she does help out when Matthew falls apart. We know Lou Reed only through Matthew’s eyes. We also are aware of Matthew’s very real anguish about Veronica. Matthew is a moral young man, and he knows that he is treading on dangerous ground as he interacts with her and with Lou Reed. As I read, I was reminded of another New York coming of age story that I read recently, Neon in Daylight. Inez, one of its main characters is very similar to Veronica. As a matter of fact, sometimes I got the two confused.Michael Imperioli said in an interview that he wrote the book during a difficult time in his teenage son’s life, and he had been spending a lot of time thinking about teenage angst. I could relate to much of it—having gotten three kids through adolescence as a single mother, and now watching teenage grandchildren deal with their own anxieties. I believe that he captured the setting, the times, and the coming of age beautifully. It was a compelling read.
    • 4/5
      I feel so lucky to have received this book because I loved it. A little bit Catcher in the Rye, a little bit The World of Henry Orient, it's a coming of age story set on the streets of Manhattan circa late 1970's.Written by Soprano 's own "Christopher " made it even more rich. Wasn't there a story line about Christopher trying his hand at writing? Micheal Imperioli did wtite several episodes.This is my type of book written about a time and place I love dearly. Michael did a good job.
    • 3/5
      The Perfume Burned His Eyes by Michael ImperioliI looked forward to this new novel by the writer and author Michael Imperioli. I had been a big fan of his since I first saw him in The Sopranos and was also aware that he was active in the local theater scene in NYC as an actor, director and writer.His new novel is a quick read which can be seen as both a positive and a negative. This easy to digest but feels more like a snack than a feast. His language is unadorned as he tells the story of an adolescent from Queens who moves to Manhattan with his single mother. He attends an Upper East Side private school where he falls in with an artsy girl and feels disconnected from the rich entitled kids who run the culture there. He also gets a job as a delivery man for the local coffee shop and through this job comes into contact with characters who populate NYC amongst them is Lou Reed who befriends him and includes him in his underworld.While the story moves quickly it lacks a depth I was hoping to find.
    • 4/5
      This is an interesting book. A punk rock book. The protagonist is a young man who's father passes away and in response his mother and he move from Queens to Manhattan. The building they choose to live in is also home to one Lou Reed. Yep that Lou Reed.Book has a Catcher in the Rye, Richard Hell feel. The events are fiction...but they could be true. It's an intriguing read that will stay with you after you finish it.
    • 4/5
      The reason I picked this book was that I have trouble reading small print and I saw in the description that it is a coming of age both. I love that genre, maybe because my own coming of age was very painful. The print is easy to read and the story flies by. As a side note, I checked with LibraryThing's device to see if I would like this book. The verdict was probably I would not. Now that I have read this book, I can say that I enjoy a lot of it but there were also some parts that almost made me physically ill. This book is written like a memoir but is not one, it sprang from Michael Imperioli's imagination and his familarity with Lou Reed's music. This author is also an actor but I have never seen him act and although Lou Reed's name was familiar with his music. Yet I want to read more from this author.Matthew's parents split up and his mother became addicted to barbituates. Matthew took his mother's advice and found a job delivering food. On one of the deliveries, he delivers some food to Lou Reed who actually lives in the same apartment building. He also meets Lou Reed's companion, Rachel. It is easy to see that Rachel is a man. Matthew also falls for a girl in school and later is both attracted and violently repelled by her. He also reluctantly accepts the task of driving a van clear across town even though he has never driven and has no driver's licence. His found method of driving was identical to my mother's even though she had driver's lessons. The author excels in writing scenes that make you roar with laughter and then a split second later, feel plunged into fear or extreme sadness. The only reason that I deducted a star was that there were also parts that repulsed me a great deal.I received an Advance Reading Copy of this book as a win from LibraryThing from the publishers in exchange for a fair book review. My thoughts and feelings in this review are totally my own.
    • 5/5
      The Perfume Burned His Eyes by Michael ImperioliStarting out with a last will & testament, abbreviated and how the departure of his father on the tail end of his sophomore year left him ambivalent and his mother self-sedated.The death of his grandfather made it financially viable for them to move out of Queens and into a posh apartment on East 52nd Street in NYC and his schooling at Hobart.He takes on a part time job as a delivery boy for a local eatery, from which, inevitably, he takes an order to his own building. Thus becomes his introduction to Lou Reed and Rachel, a duo he had seen stumble through the lobby on several occasions and first thought to be homeless. Along with hanging with Lou, Matthew has formed a somewhat friendship with Veronica, a self proclaimed witch of extensive lineage and prostitute he goes to school with.And they alternate. Lou takes him into his manic creativity while Veronica swallows him in the dark art of her psyche. He is just to weak to stand alone, for himself, against them, and the negatives just keep piling up. His mother, eating downers, never seems to notice her son is never there.When he gets the news, it’s almost expected...and you will await it too. Life shatters like a dropped bottle of gin. But the base, the thickest part of the bottle, holds solid. There is a shared pathos between us all.. the characters within and us, the reader. Imperioli has accomplished more in 253 pages than too many others try in volumes. Destined to be, p’raps already, yes.