The Perfume Burned His Eyes

By: Michael Imperioli

Narrated by: Michael Imperioli

Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Matthew is a 16-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 18, 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 50s.

©2018 Michael Imperioli (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Fantastic

I listened with my 19 year old son and we both loved everything about this book. We particularly enjoyed the Lou Reed aspect, it was surprisingly believable. Excellent writing, read perfectly. Highly recommended.

Heartfelt candor

Micheal’s honestly over exacting truthfulness is compelling. I want to hear more from Imperioli for sure.♥️

Karen Delvin

The book is riveting & amorphous, at the same time. It is covered with NYC grime. And told so eloquently by the author, His voice is music to my ears. No other voice could have painted this novel.

Especially great performance to go with an engrossing story

Michael Imperioli wrote a fascinating novel about teenage confusion, love, manic depression, art, and everything else confusing about the word when you’re 16. His performance was as exceptional as the story he wrote. Loved it.

Very Cool

As great an actor as Michael Imperioli is, he might be an even better writer. This book was intense and pulled me into a different world.

My new favorite novel

Agh !!!! The novel itself is transcendent: blunt and candid while simultaneously so articulated and masterfully worded. Michael Imperioli’s narration just perfects the story. Personally, I am partial to physical copies of novels, big this is an exception. I think I need more time to process the story’s content before I write a more in-depth review, but I would 100% recommend this book. Listening to this audio is an entire experience. I hope to see more literature from Imperioli in the future!

Brilliant

Deep, cutting, real, salvational. I wept at the end of this beautiful book. The young are so often dismissed. Michael Imperioli speaks for every tortured adolescent and teenager.

Close your eyes…

I was so pleasantly surprised by the writing of Michael Imeperioli! He really wrote an enjoyable book here. His ability to make you feel as if you were along for the crazy ride with him, the group of misfits(lol), and how he felt along the way was awesome. He pulls no punches, bared himself, and was so personally revealing…maybe that was the reason I felt so involved in the story. At times his memory is dreamlike, his days play like a sitcom, and he was even able to make the reader feel the same impending doom as he felt along the way. Growing up in a big city environment back in the 80’s it all felt very relatable to me. It’s just the way things were. You grow up thinking “wait…everyone didn’t grow up like me? What I went thru wasn’t “normal”? How come nobody else thinks this story is funny?” There’s been many times like that for me as I’ve grown and for that I can only look back and laugh. Michaels story here is more of a look back at a time, an “era” in his life like we all have and it’s a fantastic tale. Again, very well-written, I’d love to read more from him.