Review: The Perfume Burned His Eyes

The Perfume Burned His Eyes by Michael Imperioli
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You get the idea that Imperioli wants to write in the style of Lou Reed, or how Lou Reed would write poetry. So he writes some poems in beat argot. Then he decides he should wrap a story around these poems, and comes up with this one – about a teen that lives in the same building as Reed and gets hired to help him out on occasion. Imperioli has an ear for dialog. I found the dialog driving this, the most interesting component of the story. Perhaps that is from the author’s acting and screenwriting experience. I found the story somewhat interesting, though I was glad it was not long. This felt excessively New York. Imperioli read the audiobook, and unsurprisingly he handled it well. The key question when you read fiction written by an actor, I believe, is whether you would read another one by him or not. In the case of Imperioli, I would read another one. He can tell an odd story with interesting characters and interaction.

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