O RLY

December 12, 1983

Dear Alex,
I shall now begin what will unquestionably turn into a very long, very tedious, very tiresome typewritten correspondence. I can tell you are already beating your brow and cursing yourself for opening this envelope, but according to mother it is “imperative” that I write. The question she so desperately needs an answer for is one of the vaguest and most simplistic inquiries known to mankind.
How are you?
Now, knowing the fiend of interrogation that is Evelyn Hunt, her curiosity will not be satisfied until she receives an up to date oral report on your physical and mental health (twenty minutes minimum, mind you). If only you owned a telephone, I would not be the one subjected to hours of endless chatter. Perhaps you think this unkind of me. Honestly though, you should hear her go off. I believe poor Evelyn’s severe, chronic nosiness has gotten progressively worse since all of her children moved out of the house. That woman is comparable to the American troops storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day; even over the phone such is her force. Yesterday she talked to me for a full half hour because she was concerned about whether or not you were eating enough, the whole time making it sound as if it were my fault that you may be becoming malnourished. These twenty-six years I have heard nothing but lectures.
Now of course I realize I have made a right fool of myself throughout this paragraph, because a man who still complains so vehemently about his mother, in my opinion, should not be considered a man at all. For chrissakes though Alex, buy a telephone.
I realize you may be wondering why mother didn’t write to you herself, or employ either Zoë or Ewan to do the job. I suppose she thought you would be more prone to discuss the details of your life with me, rather than our extremely pious sister, egg-headed and self-absorbed older brother, or her own crotchety self. It may also be due to the fact that Zoë is currently exploring the mountain regions of Tibet and Ewan isn’t taking any calls. (He is supposedly on the brink of discovering a cure for polio or cancer or something of the like and has been working like a dog day and night for the past few months. He had articles published in the New York Times and The New England Medical Journal last week, if you hadn’t already noticed.) Father is engrossed in his crossword puzzles as per usual, and of course would be of no help.
Right, now that the affairs of each member of our immediate family have been covered I must throw my attention back to you. I really do hate to say this, but I see some sense in our mother’s current concern over your well-being. The last time we spoke over pay-phone you seemed dangerously detached from your surroundings, and had expressed that the only emotion you felt as of late was one of “utter contempt.” Was this mainly directed at your peers? Your professors? I would hardly think so, this being your third year of attending university. One would assume that at this point you would be fully aware of the massive egos that thrive on a college campus. Hell, haven’t we all been little egomaniacs since we emerged, kicking and screaming from the womb, and declaring it our God-given right to make as much noise as possible? I can’t help but laugh when I think back to my own years at university. How tiresome it was to constantly be surrounded by chain-smoking children drinking black coffee and quoting Nietzsche.
Now I have a feeling, correct me if I am wrong, that the majority of your professors are quite similar to Ewan (or he to them, whichever you prefer). You know the type, men who live life believing that they’re God’s gift to planet earth. It would be more irritating if their arrogance weren’t so often coupled with brilliance. Wasn’t one of those old fools at that school of yours even awarded a damn Nobel Prize? Yes, that Dr. Eisenberg fellow. For pete’s sake, I can’t imagine you harboring much contempt for him. Are you feeling less than jovial towards our ever-loving parents, dear Eli and Evelyn Hunt? You know they tried with the lot of us, they really did. Now I’m well aware that I’ve just simplified your worldview down to its barebones, and that your troubles no doubt extend far beyond school and kin, but by gosh you’ve got me stumped. My dear boy, what is the can of worms behind your discontent? Describe this can for me, from top to bottom, and I will try and be of assistance.
After our brief, but stimulating pay-phone conversation last week I started to think about what a funny child you were. Do you remember how you would often lock yourself up in your room and sit in silence for hours? It was fantastic to behold, because you simply would not stir. When anyone in the family bothered to ask what on earth your were doing, your response was merely, “meditating.” (Now I seem to recall that around this time Eli had been reading you passages from Siddhartha as a substitute for bedtime stories, which I believe was partly responsible for your Zen-like trances. I still marvel at the surprising amount of self-discipline you had as a seven-year-old. I suppose it’s all rather funny, in retrospect.) Are you reverting back to your second grade self and trying to reach enlightenment by tuning out the rest of society?
Please reply posthaste.

Love,
Miles

P.S. I heard through some rather unscrupulous sources that you were abandoning your thesis. Is this true? And that you are also scrapping the novel you’ve been working on since the age of fourteen? Your spare, beautiful prose is one of the greatest gifts the literary world has ever been graced with, and it kills me inside to think of you holed up in that apartment, day after day, doing absolutely nothing.