Photo: REX USAHaving your fiancée go to prison for drug-related crimes she never told you about is one thing. Watching Jason Biggs play you in a TV show about it is another.
This is the premise of the just-published piece "My Life with Piper: From Big House to Small Screen," written by Piper Kerman's now-husband, the real-life Larry Smith (he's Larry Bloom on the show).
In great detail, the journalist tells the other side of the Orange Is The New Black story. And, it's a compelling one.
Smith's epic recounting of his relationship with Kerman spans from their first non-meeting at a summer camp in the late '80s to now, when he must contend with people emailing him links to articles like this and the randomness the show has introduced into his life. Regarding the premiere party, he writes, "Was it weird to relive some of the most intimate and awful moments of our lives with our families right there in our row, along with Ricky Gervais, two seats down from my dad? You bet."
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Smith chronicles his routine managing Kerman's affairs while she was in federal prison ("At times I felt like a cross between the president of a prison fan club and a crazed soccer mom juggling her children’s schedules"), but it's his genuine love for Kerman and the healthy bemusement he has for his own situation that are the highlights, especially now that he's experiencing his partner's imprisonment in a whole new way.
"It’s trippy to watch an adapted version of some of the most intense, intimate moments of your life play out on TV, in some version of real time, and know millions of others have watched it as well and have formed an opinion of 'Piper and Larry,'" he writes. "It’s also surreal to be moved by your own fictional — though mostly true-to-life — marriage proposal, recited by someone else. It’s funny to at once wish I had said a few of the things Jason Biggs (who plays Larry) said to Taylor Schilling (who plays Piper) and also be annoyed the writers didn’t use some of my lines."
Finally, Smith clarifies another crucial detail: "For the record, though, I have never called her 'Pipes.'" (Medium)