First of all, note the date at the top of the envelope in which I first mailed this letter, and then note the date in which it was sent back to me a full FIVE months later. I’m not surprised that it was returned to me because I wasn’t confident of this being the address I should use to send him the letter, but I thought — back in AUGUST — that if it wasn’t the correct address, it would come back to me soon (like within a month perhaps) and then I’d try a different one. So, when it didn’t come back to me in any sort of timely manner, I thought I’d been successful, and I hoped that Perry had actually received my letter and the accompanying bookmark I sent for him.
Sadly, that wasn’t the case, now, was it? In the midst of those five months that my unopened and undelivered letter was languishing in some post office somewhere, the intended recipient died.
On the day of his death, I was in Mexico, and I learned of his passing while riding in a car to visit some friends. I had pulled out my phone to check my Facebook for any communication from back home, but as soon as Facebook opened, all I saw was post after post about his death. I couldn’t believe it. I’d barely managed to gasp out what I was seeing to the others in the car when my son texted me the news, too, because he knows that I’m a big “Friends” fan and that Chandler is my favorite.
I wrote a “Tomes and Topics” soon after, which you probably read, but here’s the link in case you’d like to view it again (it also contains a link to a blog post I’d written a while back about how I’d “Chandlerized” my writing life): Losing Matthew Perry
His death hit me hard for many reasons — he and I were the same age, he overcame so much and was finally turning his life around (if you read his book, you’ll know what I mean) and doing something that was really meaningful to him (helping others who struggle with addiction), he was a fellow writer, he played a character that had really resonated with me on “Friends” and his movie “Fools Rush In” is one of my favorites, and I had a foolish hope that maybe I’d meet him in person someday if he continued writing and speaking about books.
I took the tiniest bit of consolation that maybe, just maybe, he’d received my letter —after all, I’d sent it two months before his death — and that maybe, just maybe, my words had given him the tiniest bit of enjoyment like his acting gave me. I’d read his book — that was the reason for my letter — and I’d been as astonished as others at the depths to which his life had sunk and amazed that he’d lived through it all. I’d written to him as a fellow writer but also as a fan who wanted to let him know that I was rooting for him.
So, when my letter came back to me about a week ago, I cried.
He never got it. He never read my words. He never used the bookmark I’d made especially for him (as a belated birthday gift) because it is sunny and optimistic like I hoped the rest of his life would be and has a funny saying on it — a nod to Chandler, so to speak. He never knew that he meant something to me, and now he never will.
I did believe in him, and I think that, if he were still with us, he’d be working hard every day to help others like him get better.
In my reading world, I’m almost finished with “The Pillars of the Earth.” This book has been on my TBR list for years, so I’m finally reading it and will write my next column about it. It has almost 1,000 pages, but it doesn’t really feel like it’s that long. I’ve enjoyed it, but I do have one major complaint about it and perhaps about Follett — there are some unpleasant (and maybe unnecessary) sex scenes in this novel, and I’ve done a bit of research and learned I’m not alone in thinking this. Other than that aspect of the novel, though, it’s really good.
I’m also giving my most hated book a second chance, and I’m actually enjoying it this time around. It could be my age now and the perspective it brings to the reading, it could be that I’m reading it more as a writer than a reader, and it could just be that I haven’t yet got to the parts that made me hate the book to begin with. We will see. I’m determined to see the reread all the way through. What book is it?
As I explained in the following recent column, my reading goal for 2024 is to read only books that I consider to be “quality” literature. I think the above two books are quality literature. (Visit my website and click on the “Columns” tab to see the full list of books I’ve covered in my 14 years of writing the column): my website
I’d love any recommendations for “quality” literature you’d like to give me, so leave a comment if you have a recommendation for a book that I haven’t already covered.
I’ll be back next week with more from my latest work in progress. Become a paying subscriber to access what I shared last week and what I’ll be sharing throughout the process of writing my seventh novel.
Tammy Marshall