Honey, baby, mine A mother and daughter talk life, death, love (and banana pudding)

Faced with the terrifying possibility that her celebrated actor mother, Diane Ladd, had six months to live, award-winning actor Laura Dern determined to carry out two projects. The first was getting her mother to walk for 15 minutes a day, an intensely painful activity for Ladd but the one thing doctors said could help heal her severely scarred lungs. The second project was recording their walking conversations: talks that let them reminisce, surprise one another, recall old hurts, occasionally revise the other's memory, and, quite often, laugh (and Ladd cough), and that became this book. It's an exercise in presence met with urgency--just making it to the next bench, asking that question now or never--that offers such uncanny utterances as, "Remember when you were eight and we went on that cruise with Erica Jong?" Family photos, recipes, playbills, handwritten notes, and individual asides break up the conversation transcripts. From their favorite colors to the legacy they share as single mothers and award-winning artists, this becomes a very full and generous picture of a mother and daughter, imbued with genuine gratitude. Having already outlived her prognosis, Ladd says, "Our talking and your love have prolonged my life, I just know it." It's quite special to witness. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The actress-authors' friend and book-club maven Reese Witherspoon provides a foreword, ensuring that this star-filled, buzzed-about book will be a sure-fire hit.

When a famous mother and daughter take up walking in an attempt to heal mom's troubled lungs, hearts and souls become involved. Ladd and Dern, her daughter from her marriage to actor Bruce Dern, didn't realize quite how much they had to talk about until Ladd was diagnosed with a lung condition that could kill her in six months. There wasn't much to be done; the doctor could only suggest that walking might expand Ladd's lung capacity. It may have worked, as four years later, both mother and daughter are around for photo sessions, an audiobook recording, and publicity about the book. Based on the transcripts of a series of recorded talks, the book includes an introduction by Reese Witherspoon, additional commentary from both writers, a gorgeous collection of snapshots and studio stills, and a few recipes. Reminiscences of Ladd's Mississippi youth are one of the treats of this double memoir, but what is most remarkable about the book is that because of the nature of the conversations, Ladd and Dern were able to dig up all the unfinished business and resentments of their relationship. Instead of preserving them in amber as in many memoirs daughters write about their mothers, this book allows readers to share in the flare-ups, the sorting through, the soothing, etc. Dern recalls a haircut Ladd gave her son 14 years ago, without asking: "Thinking that boys can't have long hair is just so outdated, Mom. It really smacks of homophobia and gender bias. We should be raising our kids with a sense of freedom and openness toward their own self-expression." To which Diane replies, "Woo-boy! No, Laura. He asked for the haircut." "You are such an actress!" says Laura. "That is not true!" From the outset, this familial portrait is feisty, frank, and full of love. One of the best mother-daughter stories to come out of Hollywood. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.