A Party Boy Reflects On Life, Lip Gloss
by Dan Kois
The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt, by Jon-Jon Goulian
May 16, 2011
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/16/136242022/a-partyboy-reflects-on-life-lip-glossBack in 1976, a 7-year-old boy named Jon-Jon Goulian wrote himself a postcard. He gave his postman strict instructions to arrange for the letter to be delivered 30 years later, to his grandfather's summer home in Vermont. As it happens, grownup Jon-Jon was in Vermont the day his directive was carried out, and received a message from his pint-sized self.
Young Jon-Jon mostly wanted to know whether Older Jon-Jon had blossomed into a pro soccer player. He didn't think to ask whether his future self would disappoint his parents, reshape his body with multiple nose jobs and countless hours at the gym, or wear skirts and lip gloss every day. In his very funny but frustratingly shallow memoir, The Man in the Gray Flannel Skirt, Goulian tries to explain to himself — and to us — just what happened.
