Dear Mr. You

August 10, 2015
Actress Parker, winner of Tony and Emmy awards, brings her talent for words to the page in this epistolary collection as she recounts scenes from her life through the men who have influenced her, for better or worse. In a letter to her late father, she writes of his time as a soldier in the Philippines in WWII, where he was shot, barely making it out alive. Decades later, he takes the family to Europe when he can’t afford it because Parker’s plans to make the trip with friends fell through. He’s a father who stands up for his child when the librarian thinks Parker has lied about how many books she’s read, and she sees him in her young son as he defends her against another woman’s insults. In a warm tribute to her accountant, Abraham, who becomes a lifelong friend (the kind of person who goes to his office on his day off to get her son’s passport), she recounts their first meeting when she was a 20-something broke mess (she is now 50) and fell asleep on his office couch. Parker has a raw and powerful apology for the cab driver she cursed out when pregnant and on her own, during dark days when she hadn’t been leaving the house. When he tells her to get out of the cab because he “doesn’t want her anymore,” Parker, in so much emotional pain it “hurts to breathe,” can barely utter, “No one does.” Like her performances, some of her recollections and interpretations come across as unusual, but there are also many lovely moments touched with grace and beauty.

October 15, 2015

Actress Parker's memoir is a series of letters to the men she's known, resulting in a tender portrait of a life deeply felt. She writes to her family, friends, former lovers, strangers, and people she was never able to meet with astute wit and poise. Honoring those the author lost--she had an ephemeral friendship with a man dying of lung cancer, for example--as well as a tribute to times in her life she's moved beyond, such as when she stabbed a boyfriend in the hand with a fork, the memoir prods and unfolds brief moments of life, limning the sheer excess of people encountered in a single life, and the impressions they leave. In "Dear Mr. Mentor" Parker writes, "You took spaces with you. No way to take the voices you loved, they would have to stay behind, so you took the ellipses." VERDICT This title is a reminder that our encounters with others shape and take up their due place in our lives, so long as we pay attention. Memoir readers, storytellers and lovers, striving artists, letter writers, and dreamers will enjoy.--Valerie Hamra, Brooklyn

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