Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker [in Library Journal]
*STARRED REVIEW
This is not your ordinary Hollywood memoir: no script doctor or publicist seems to have embellished or sanitized Tony/Emmy/Obie/Golden Globe-winning actress Mary-Louise Parker’s first book. Written as a series of letters to almost three dozen “Mr.”s both real and imagined, Parker’s work captures past experiences – some lasting moments, others lingering forever –from her life thus far.
Her strongest letters have to do with family: a grandfather she never met, her father, the orderly at the hospital after the birth of her son, the “future man who loves my daughter,” the “oyster picker” who provides one of her father’s final meals. Her most memorable encounter involves “Mr. Cabdriver” in whose New York taxi she barely moves a few blocks, but with whom she unintentionally shares some of her most raw, vulnerable, heart-piercing loneliness.
Verdict: That Parker chooses to narrate her own words guarantees the most outstanding, most accurate aural experience. Listeners also hear Parker’s two young children voice their own lines. With implacable authenticity, Parker’s life in epistolary snippets reveals a portrait of an artist as a young woman, lover, mother, daughter, and all-around fabulous performer.
Review: “Audio,” Library Journal, March 1, 2016
Readers: Adult
Published: 2015
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