I don’t recall seeing this book in the store when it came out. If I had, I would not have picked it up. Strange title (self-help?), superimposed on some ambiguous image—of a tree stump? And if I had picked it up and turned to the author photo, I would have found a familiar face. An actress. A really good one. I would then have immediately set it down and moved on. I hate when people use their fame to open otherwise closed doors, as in Tom Hanks recently publishing fiction in The Newyorker, which I refused to read, which was later deemed as average at best by one critic, which prompted me to exclaim, “Ha, see, I was right.” I like to be right. We all like that. Though I could have been more magnanimous, I suppose. I love Tom Hanks. As an actor.
Luckily, I received Parker’s book as a Father’s Day gift, so I felt obliged to at least dip into it. And now I can’t put it down. Each chapter is a letter—to Grandpa, to Daddy, to a free spirit she calls Blue—which is an ingenious way to craft a memoir. Who doesn’t love to read a heartfelt, well written letter, even one not addressed to us? The letters are polished like poems—no words are wasted—but you also get a sense that they’re unvarnished, that nothing is withheld. Some of the recipients of these letters will never read them, which is heartbreaking, but which also makes the letters feel even more vital because our reading breathes new life into them and keeps Grandpa and Daddy and the rest of them alive.