The Paris Review

Dear Betty Draper Francis,

As I write this I’m live-streaming President Barack Obama’s Barnard College commencement speech on my laptop.

What’s a laptop? Imagine a typewriter that’s also a Sears catalogue that’s also a post office that’s also a high school yearbook. Oh, and in the dark before dawn, when the wind howls like a pack of rabid Dire Wolves and thunder claps like a thousand canon balls colliding in the ether, you can log on and look at pictures of cats wearing Halloween costumes.

As for Obama, it’s true: he’s of African descent. More importantly, he’s brilliant and beautiful and a supporter of gay marriage. I wish you were with me, Betty, watching the president tell the women of tomorrow that, yes, you can close the gap between life as it is and life as you want it to be. Read More »

Dear Pete Campbell,

You’ve always creeped me out. This isn’t entirely your fault. You can blame your parents for the beady eyes and the cheeks as yet untouched by razor; for your emotional immaturity; for the fortune they squandered and the love they withheld; and for the Waspy sense of privilege they nonetheless managed to confer on your skinny ass.

And so I don’t hate you, Pete, as others are wont to do. Sure, you’ve done some shitty things—getting Peggy preggers then treating her like trash; blackmailing Don into making you head of accounts; last night’s display of pathetic adultery with that chick from The Gilmore Girls—but I feel a strange affinity for you anyway. Read More »

Dear Sally Draper,

You know what’s weird? You could be my mother.

I mean, you’re not, obviously. My mom’s a ginger and Jewish, and her sixties childhood was really quite different from yours, what with her not having Don Draper as a dad or Betty as a mom, and her not seeing her step-grandmother go down on Roger Sterling in the back room at an American Cancer Society Benefit.

So yeah, sucks to be you.

But what if things had gone differently? What if my mom had stayed with that painter who looked like Charles Manson and once punched my grandfather in the face, and my dad had met you instead among the bohemians inhabiting seventies Jerusalem, drinking wine on Old City balconies, discussing poetry and politics, and inhaling the sweetly mingling odors of bellflower and frying falafel?

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Dear Peggy Olson,

I haven’t heard back from Don, so I thought I’d try you instead. Draper might be a lost cause anyway, hormonal and unhinged, prone to mood swings and irrational behavior. One minute he’s weeping with wussy regret, and the next he’s attacking Megan with the cold-eyed ferocity of a grizzly bear or a Law and Order villain. I don’t know what’s gotten into the guy, but I suspect it might be my fault, these missives from the future fucking up his fragile worldview.

He’s starting to remind me of this basketball player, Ron Artest. Artest was a baller for a while and a tough bastard, fighting fans in the stands and whatnot. Then he went through a spiritual awakening, did Dancing with the Stars, and legally changed his name to World Peace. A new man, or so we all thought. Until Sunday, when he elbowed some dude in the face just for having a sweet Mohawk. Maybe Heraclitus was right about character being fate.

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Dear Don Draper,

I think I know what’s wrong. Are you waking to pee in the middle of the night? Suffering from joint pain? Hot flashes? Vaginal dryness?

Don, you’re going through menopause.

I’m kidding. Sort of. No one doubts your manhood, especially not after Sunday’s display of muscle and plumbing. You’re a beefcake, buddy, grade-A American sirloin. When you stripped down to your undershirt it was like you were Spartacus entering the arena. Or, to put it in more modern terms, it was like you were Khal Drogo and the sink was your Khaleesi.

Poor Pete Campbell in his dinky little party tie, face crimson and flush, fawning over you. Twice emasculated, and married to that ballbuster Trudy. She wears hair curlers to bed, Don. Hair curlers!

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Dear Don Draper,

I worry that you may not be getting these letters. I have yet to receive a response, and after seeing last night’s episode, I’m convinced that either the mail isn’t arriving or you’re willfully ignoring my advice. Especially the stuff about smoking. I mean, cancer is one thing, but watching you light up with a hundred-plus fever and a hacking cough made my own tonsils burn and balloon.

The bad news from the future is there’s still no cure for the common flu. Or maybe there is but Big Pharma won’t let us have it. However, we do know this: despite what your ads may say, cigarette smoke doesn’t soothe a sore throat. Shocking, I know. Try some Halls and a neti pot.

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