Then Again by Diane Keaton

Description

The trade paperback edition of Diane Keaton’s unforgettable memoir includes a new Afterword about the bonds between mother and daughter.

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
Janet Maslin, The New York Times • People • Vogue
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
—Financial Times • Chicago Sun-Times
The Independent • Bookreporter
The Sunday Business Post

Mom loved adages, quotes, slogans. There were always little reminders pasted on the kitchen wall. For example, the word THINK. I found THINK thumbtacked on a bulletin board in her darkroom. I saw it Scotch-taped on a pencil box she’d collaged. I even found a pamphlet titled THINK on her bedside table. Mom liked to THINK.
 
So begins Diane Keaton’s unforgettable memoir about her mother and herself. In it you will meet the woman known to tens of millions as Annie Hall, but you will also meet, and fall in love with, her mother, the loving, complicated, always-thinking Dorothy Hall. To write about herself, Diane realized she had to write about her mother, too, and how their bond came to define both their lives. In a remarkable act of creation, Diane not only reveals herself to us, she also lets us meet in intimate detail her mother. Over the course of her life, Dorothy kept eighty-five journals—literally thousands of pages—in which she wrote about her marriage, her children, and, most probingly, herself. Dorothy also recorded memorable stories about Diane’s grandparents. Diane has sorted through these pages to paint an unflinching portrait of her mother—a woman restless with intellectual and creative energy, struggling to find an outlet for her talents—as well as her entire family, recounting a story that spans four generations and nearly a hundred years.
 
More than the autobiography of a legendary actress, Then Again is a book about a very American family with very American dreams. Diane will remind you of yourself, and her bonds with her family will remind you of your own relationships with those you love the most.

Editorial Review

Amazon Best Books of the  Month, November 2011: Yes, she dated Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, and Al Pacino, and yes, she appeared in The Godfather and Annie Hall. But this is much more than a mere celebrity tell-all. Then Again is sharply written, insightful, and often poignant, a story of family and friendship, and above all an ode to Keaton's complicated, adage-wielding mother, who harbored her own dreams of a bigger life. Woven throughout the book are excerpts from the dozens of journals Keaton's mother, Dorothy Hall, kept over the years. (She died in 2008.) If you’re a Diane Keaton fan, you’ll adore her even more after reading this memoir. If you have no idea who Diane Keaton is, it’s still a compelling story on its own–heartfelt, funny, and memorable. –Neal Thompson