James Frey: My friend Leonard

The last time readers heard from James Frey, he had just returned from a sojourn in hell. In his debut memoir, A Million Little Pieces, he described arriving at a midwest rehab clinic in total blackout, nursing a hole in his face that required 47 stitches to close. His vascular system was leaking at the seams. If he used drugs again, Frey's doctors told him, he would die.

That he survived this gruelling period of detox was a minor miracle, something Frey seems to understand because with A Million Little Pieces he transformed this experience into a work of exquisitely descriptive art, something — dare we say — redemptive.

Still, sobriety isn't just an issue of toxicity, or restraint. It's about learning how to cope with life on your own. And that is the story of Frey's brave and equally bold follow-up memoir, My Friend Leonard.

Composed in the same Gatling-gun rhythm as its predecessor, the book begins with Frey concluding a brief stint in jail — for crimes he committed before going into rehab — and then racing to Chicago to reunite with Lily, the woman he fell in love with while getting sober.

However, upon arrival he discovers Lily has killed herself. Suddenly, Frey is alone, almost penniless, and dealing with the wildest kind of grief for the first time in years in a city he knows hardly at all. It is the first big test in Frey's attempt to stay sober.

Enter Leonard, Frey's mysteriously wealthy bet-placing chum from Vegas who watched over him during rehab. Combine Dr. Phil with Tony Soprano, and cast James Caan to play the part, and you'll get just a hint of Leonard's contours.

After giving Frey a US$30,000 loan, Leonard catches up with his friend by breaking into his apartment with a right-hand heavy he calls Snapper. Leonard gives Frey a pep talk, a wad of cash and a big steak dinner. Then he gives him a job.

This is unlike any job Frey has ever had. He responds to beeps, which give him a phone number, which he calls and receives two addresses. He then ferries things in suitcases around the midwest. He is paid in cash.

It says something about the colourful nature of their friendship that this almost certainly illegal employment becomes just part of the backdrop in My Friend Leonard.

Mostly, he treats Frey like the son he never had — dispensing advice and money, and little tips on how to outsmart Uncle Sam. When Frey accumulates too much cash, Leonard instructs him in how to hide it. He wants Frey to get a safe deposit box, buy rare books and art.

Frey includes very little detail in this book. There are almost no brand names, no dates, only one or two addresses. All these things, it seems, could detract from the purity of Frey's voice — its vortex of fear and need, its addled claustrophobia.

Frey's faithfulness to these feelings, no matter how embarrassing and childish, makes My Friend Leonard a deeply affecting book. A tiring one, too. Read it and you will appreciate the way Frey weathered a full-frontal assault from emotions he didn't know existed.

That is, in the end, what drugs do — they don't soothe feelings. They simply cover them with a quilt of numbness. In My Friend Leonard, James Frey describes adjusting to life without that protective blanket and the effect is mesmerising. He puts the Technicolor back into memoir.

* John Freeman is a New York writer.

* London John Murray, $36.99