Kelsey Miller

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"I'll Be There For You is a lot like Friends you come for the comfort, you stay for the much larger (and far more interesting) conversations it sparks. Like Kelsey Miller, I was a casual Friends fan back when it aired - and have been fascinated by the show's afterlife with an entirely new set of fans. Miller not only gives all the fascinating backstory on how such a seminal and popular show made it to air, but answers the question that's been following me for years: how is this show still so popular? I'll Be There For You isn't just about Friends-it's about the specific void that Friends has filled in so many people's everyday lives."

- Anne Helen Petersen, culture writer at BuzzFeed and author of Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud

One of the most popular television shows of all time, Friends ran for ten seasons and at its peak was a culture-influencing phenomenon. More than a decade after the last episode aired, a reported 16 million Americans still view reruns weekly, and the show is watched around the world by many of Netflix's 118 million subscribers. Journalist Kelsey Miller was only ten years old when the show debut in 1994, but it remains an indelible part of her experience. With I'll Be There For You: The One about Friends (Hanover Square Press; October 23, 2018; $26.99), Miller has written "the definitive Friends history" (EW.com), an incisive cultural study that is "Nostalgic and affectionate, with plenty of dish; just the thing for fans of the show"(Kirkus Reviews).

"Friends has managed to transcend age, nationality, cultural barriers, and even its own dated, unrelatable flaws," Miller suggests. "Because underneath all that, it is a show about something truly universal: friendship. It's a show about the transitional period of early adulthood, when you and your peers are untethered from family, unattached to partners, and equal parts excited and uncertain about the future. The only sure thing you have is each other."

Miller's breezy, informed narrative blends admiration and a critical eye as she chronicles the creation of the show, its promising if imperfect beginnings, and its remarkably quick transition into a cultural juggernaut. She profiles the six beloved characters and the until-then largely unknown actors who portrayed them, revealing how this close-knit group of attractive performers formed intricate off-set bonds as well-and how their lives were changed forever by the show. She details behind-the-scenes stories about creative choices that often succeeded, but sometimes failed spectacularly. And she probes Friends' wider reach, influencing everything from the way women cut their hair to the burgeoning coffee house movement spurred by the fictional hangout Central Perk.

I'll Be There For You holds Friends up to a prism of the decade during which it was created, considering how it refracted the zeitgeist of the time. Even in its heyday, the series was largely viewed as a pure entertainment, presenting an idealized, even fantasy version of urban life for twenty-somethings (How did Monica afford that amazing New York apartment?). Still, Miller also explores the ways in which the show grappled with more serious societal issues, albeit always with a light tone. Friends presented the first lesbian wedding on primetime, Ross faced part-time parenthood, many characters navigated complicated relationships with their parents, and after 9/11, the show wrestled with how to depict the national tragedy without bringing down the tone of the show. But, Miller also does not shy away from the calling out the show when it failed-noting for example, how the scripts often stooped to well-worn, adolescent-level gay jokes.

"Deeply reported and brimming with delicious insight, Kelsey Miller's account of the Friends phenomenon takes us on a nostalgic, thrilling and bittersweet journey behind the scenes of a TV show that captured the fleeting moment in our lives when friends became family," ` says Erin Carlson, author of I'll Have What She's Having: How Nora Ephron's Three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy. Miller's intelligent analysis of the series' enduring legacy reveals a universal truth: The friendships we make in our twenties change us forever-and for those eager to relive the magic of the past, Friends now feels like family."