About the Author

Mary-Louise Parker is a Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe award-winning actress. Her writing has appeared in Esquire, The Riveter, Bust, and The Bullet. This is her first book.

Reviews

Smart, funny, sad, entertaining, never boring. It is that rare thing in books written by bold-faced names: a very pleasant surprise. Put it another way: If no one knew who you were, this would still be a book worth reading.-- "The Daily Beast"
That rarest of things: A celebrity actor's memoir that briefly elevates the form with a literary approach and some real style.-- "Phoenix New Times"
Dear Mr. You boasts both innovative style and profound substance. . . . Parker's writing is full of poetry, too, with lines as startling as breaking glass. . . . Flashing backward and forward in time, and into and out of all these lives, Dear Mr. You is really about finding the beauty, the humor -- and the sorrows -- in our lives and the lives of others, and being glad and grateful for all of it. So here is my letter: Dear Ms. Parker, Thank you for this dazzling collection.-- "San Francisco Chronicle"
I am a memoir connoisseur. I teach the form. I read dozens upon dozens of 'true' stories every year, and only two or three stand out. Dear Mr. You stands out.-- "Chicago Tribune"
Mary-Louise Parker is a smart, smart woman who GETS LIFE. In Dear Mr. You, Parker puts together all the letters she's written to the men in her life. Her grandfather, a priest, boyfriends. It's all there. It's dynamite.-- "HelloGiggles"
Parker dives into complex topics that aren't always easy to put to paper with humor and rich, full writing. She draws the readers in and will have them hooked until the final page. Dear Mr. You is a thrilling and brilliant debut by an accomplished actor.-- "The Daily Iowan"
Parker's first book is unconventional, spirited, refreshingly honest, and painfully funny....Each letter proves Parker as a writer capable of inspiring depth and self-reflection. With Dear Mr. You, this accomplished actress can confidently add slash writer to her bio -- and her fans should consider that addendum just as confidently.-- "Bustle"
Yes, that Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds, Proof). Her debut memoir is couched as a series of letters--funny, heartbreaking, steamy, wise--to men who have touched her life: friends, family, lovers and total strangers....Parker doesn't name names or connect dots. What she does is provide a series of strobe-lit glimpses into an extraordinary life.-- "MORE"
"Mary-Louise Parker's Dear Mr. You is straight-up fantastic; a gripping and deeply humane and often hilarious book. It catches glimpses of life at all sorts of unexpected moments, electrifying them with its sharp-eyed astonishment at how absurd and joyous things can get. There's nothing cheaply-earned about its wonder; nothing sugarcoated in its gratitude.It's all grit, all messy particulars--full of surprise and full-throated in its song."--Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams
"To have an artist accomplished in one genre triumph in another--seemingly out of the blue--is an extraordinary event. Mary-Louise Parker's Dear Mr. You is a pants-pissingly funny, gut-wrenching meditation on her loving and tormented encounters with the masculine. From grandfather to father to son to the wacky, pre-Burning Man hippie with a loincloth who haunts her at a co-op job to the lover who deserves the coda 'Sleep tight, little monster.' Whether honoring the ash-covered firefighter she sees on 9/11 or shouting as a crazy person at her malignantly lost cabdriver, Parker merges memoir with poetry in this haunting, sui generis work. I drank it down in one gulp, then started back at page one again. A magnificent, necessary surprise."--Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club and Lit