Review of Adventures with the Wife in Space: Living with Doctor Who
Author: Neil Perryman (with interruptions by Sue Perryman)
Release Date: 07 Nov 2013
Paperback List Price: £12.99 or $16.99
Neil Perryman is partially responsible for the existence of this blog. It was the blog “Behind the Sofa” that he and several of his friends ran that gave me the idea that perhaps I could write about Doctor Who myself. When they decided to mothball the site instead of answering my request to become a contributor (I swear that wasn’t my fault!), I decided I’d just start my own blog.
So you can just imagine what it meant to me to receive a review copy of Neil’s new book, based on his wildly successful blog by the same name—the one that took up his time after “Behind the Sofa.” It felt like I’d arrived, somehow.
Then I started to read.
Now anyone familiar with “Adventures with the Wife in Space” from its two-and-a-half-year run online will probably know already that this book is not simply a collection of the blog’s content; Neil told us that at the blog several times. Even so, I was not prepared for the kind of content the book actually provides.
I don’t know what I was expecting, in retrospect. But I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t expect to get such an intimate portrait of Neil. Although I felt like I sort of knew him and Sue both via the blog—enough that I figured I could sit down with them for a drink at a con, if the opportunity ever arose, and have a not-terribly-awkward conversation—after reading the book, it was obvious I’d only scratched the surface before. Nothing can substitute for personal give and take, but one can hardly read what Neil has chosen to share without coming away feeling like you’ve been let in on something only a friend would divulge.
Yet at the same time, it’s the same, hilarious Neil (and Sue—let’s not forget the interruptions from Sue) we already know. The humor we’ve come to expect by reading the blog (which, if you haven’t done, is highly recommended before you get too far into Part Three—unless you’re a “not-we” like my hubby who doesn’t really care in the least about spoilers) is rife throughout. I snorted and giggled as often through these pages as I did when reading Sue’s reactions to every Doctor Who story ever online.
So it made my head spin sometimes. It seems to alternate without warning between startlingly honest anecdotes about what it meant to Neil to grow up watching—or not watching—Doctor Who, from the fear of being seen as “the other” at school to the effects of his sometimes turbulent home life on his relationship with his favorite show, and familiarly silly snark between the eponymous spouses. In other words, the book’s subtitle is perhaps the most telling.
And while I thoroughly enjoyed it as someone who faithfully follows both the show and Neil and Sue’s blog, the book may be as much for loved ones of Doctor Who fans (especially long-term fans) as for anyone. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at Neil’s childhood, Neil and Sue’s relationship, and The Experiment (the blog project) itself that might just look familiar enough to shed light on some of our common “Whovian” traits for those who love us but not necessarily our particular obsession.
I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Neil or Sue in person, and if Sue has her way I probably never will (since she’s unlikely ever to agree to go to any other Doctor Who convention in her life, let alone one I happen to attend). Like fantasizing about seeing Eccleston on screen again as the Ninth Doctor, though, I’ll keep wishing for the impossible on that front. Neil and Sue have added something fascinatingly unique to the fandom, and I’d love someday to have the chance to buy them a drink and thank them.
In the meantime, I’ll be over here, rereading this book a dozen times.