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Wit and Wisdom from Mary-Louise Parker
You have your own guacamole. Why are you eating my guacamole?
A few years ago, I went to hear Mary-Louise Parker speak about her then-new and still-wonderful book, Dear Mr You, a memoir in the form of letters to real and imagined men in her life. She was fabulous and lovely and the book is wonderful. Recommended.
Here’s some of what she said that night.
On letters
I’m really into stationery and pens. I love writing letters. If you really take the time with a letter, it does matter to people. Some letters — I remember holding them, so excited I almost didn’t want to open them. It’s so romantic to me, a letter. Up there with jewelry.
On why she chose to write to and about men in her memoir
Why not? I am such a romantic and I do love men and I love those crazy experiences.
On why she doesn’t name the men she addresses in her memoir
It lends more poetry to let the reader project onto it. It becomes more mechanical and a little less magical with the practicality of an actual name.
On high school
No-one asked me to prom. I was really a wallflower and nobody paid attention to me. There was a part of me that thought you turned fifteen and a boy just showed you up and took you around the neighbourhood in his car. But that never happened to me. I doubt [my former classmates] even remember I was there. I cut class quite a bit also because it felt excruciating and I hated being there.
On whether she enjoyed getting attention when she went to a college “full of other misfits”
Well, what do you think?
