e-mail to a friend in need“Dear Sugar” FTW!
If I may: advice columns, when they’re good, they’re GOOD. And by “good,” I mean not just good, wise, compassionate advice. I mean a good read, even for folks who are not struggling with the same issues as “Lovelorn” or “Confused.” Because at their best — best-written, that is — they are lovely and literate portraits of true, raw suffering and hope: a real-life micro-epistolary novel, a poetic precursor, even, to the talk and reality show. Some, over time, have been necessarily brief (so to speak), but now, thanks to Internet real-estate, they can flow into beautiful long-form, complete with backstory and metaphor and soaring free verse. I say “they,” but in fact, there are but few that fly as high as I describe. All of which is to say: Read Dear Sugar. Maybe start with this one, if it’s cool for you to cry at work. And then the rest. This, ladies and gentlemen, is advice; this, my peeps, is art. Read, weep, leap, cheer.
You’re welcome.
