Hanks for the Memoirs

I came across this video totally by accident.  E.A. Hanks is a journalist who was on the staff of Vanity Fair and has contributed to such publications as Time, the Guardian, and the New York Times.  She is also the daughter of Tom Hanks.  She’s just written a book, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road which is about (well, I’m going to simplify it here a lot) a journey she took driving her minivan from California to Florida (on U.S. 10), to make sense of her upbringing in Sacramento with an incredibly difficult, deeply troubled mother.  She follows the same route she took on a trip with her mother when she was 10, and uses her mother’s diaries as a sort of guide.  What makes this stand out is that she’s interviewed at the 92nd Street Y by her father.
 
(In other interviews – and in the book – she notes that her father was aware of the problems in Sacramento, but her mother had custody.  However, around when she was 12, she was able to get out of the situation and moved down to Los Angeles.  She also gives much praise to her older brother Colin.)
 
The conversation is fascinating – ranging between riveting, matter-of-fact, amusing, dark, upbeat, unexpected, charming, open, offbeat and thoughtful.  Tom Hanks largely keeps himself and his perspective out of it all, putting all the focus (properly) on his daughter whose book and life story this is, despite one of the focal personalities being his first wife, and the other being, of course, his daughter.  But he’s able to occasionally bring his knowledge of events into some of his questions – though, again, keeping the focus on the author.  The conversation runs for 53 minutes.