In Pieces: A Memoir

In Pieces: A Memoir by Sally Field         Audiobook:  10 hrs., 41 mins.       Hardback Book:  416 pages                  

First off, I have to say, I like biographies but this is the most depressing biography I have read.   As the saying goes, “No one know what goes on behind closed doors.”  There has always been a sadness around Sally Field, though her early t.v. work showed a smiling,  vibrant young woman there was always a deep melancholy in her eyes like there was so much more to her than what her persona revealed.   Now, after reading her life story, I see what her eyes were trying to tell.    First of all her father was one of her mother’s teachers, her parents never married.   Sally didn’t know her father until she had grown up and was on t.v. when her father contacted her.   He talked a good game to get her to come to his house so he could meet his little girl.   Trouble was, it really wasn’t her he wanted to meet,  he thought with her celebrity being on t.v. he could hit her up for money, which he often did over the years.    She had an older brother who she was really close to.   Her brother was bookish, wore glasses and was over weight which meant he got hassled a lot at school.   They lived in California and her mother did some acting and landed a few roles in films and at one gig, met the stuntman turned actor, Jock O’ Malley,  they fell in love and married.    Jock was an athlete and he determined the family was going to be athletes, too.   He built contraptions for them to do stunts,  he set up a 3 story high diving board forcing and shaming the kids into going off the high dive though Sally cried until he got aggravated and went up and pushed her off into the water.  Jock’s behavior darkened over the years, he would get particularly annoyed with her brother and strong arm him into doing exaggerated feats to toughen him up.   No Sissy’s in his household and that included Sally.   There was something else going on, too.   From the time Sally was 2 years old Jock started having her walk on his back, then he started rolling over so she could walk on his front, too.    Sally knew even then this wasn’t right but her mother would often call to her that her “Dad” (Jock) wanted her to come walk on his back.   Though she hated it, she would make the awful ascension up the stairs and into the bedroom where Jock lay naked on the bed with a sheet tossed across himself.   She didn’t want to, but, she was intimidated by him and even though he began putting his hands on her little body she endured it silently and her mother continued to drink to the point of becoming an alcoholic but again, this was accepted as just who she was and another thing to be endured.  The molestation continued through her teenage years.   When she began to have boyfriends her relationships were never what she wished they would be and she always seemed to lose herself in catering to the needs and going along with whatever her boyfriend wanted    It infuriated her, but, she couldn’t seem to change including when she dated Burt Reynolds.   They were each damaged by their pasts and she adored Burt and was sure she had found her true soulmate anxious to share their experiences and finally have someone she could talk to about her troubled past, unfortunately, Burt didn’t want to hear about her issues, nor did he want to speak about his own beyond the bit he shared with her on their first date.    She liked to cuss, he didn’t want his lady to cuss.    She had been married and had 2 young sons.   Burt didn’t really want the kids around.   He didn’t want to be reminded of her other life with other men.   So she would go over to his house and spend the night after the boys went to bed while her mother babysat, then she would get up and go home early in the morning to be home to make breakfast for the boys when they got up.    She was wearing herself out trying to accommodate everyone except herself.    Burt would send her out on errands but he didn’t give her money to pick stuff up for him.    She finally told him she would need some cash to pick up his requests and he told her his manager only gave him a thousand dollars a week to spend and if he gave her $200 that would only leave him with $800 to spend.   She felt so guilty she never asked for money again and continued to pay for his stuff out of her pocket but being with him so much she wan’t working steadily and was getting low on money herself and still had to pay her house payment and keep food on the table for the boys.   A showdown came between her and Burt when she took an edgy role to break her typecasting of the girl next door type.   Burt accused her of wanting to play a whore and started making wacky accusations.   She finally realized it was time to put space between her and Burt and get out of the relationship all together.    In this book, Sally names names discussing casting couch sessions she endured, etc.    Like I said, there is so much here that is really sad, bad or unfortunate that it outways anything nice or good – very little of that mentioned here.   It is well written.   It is blunt but honest.   But when you come to the end you think man, what a downer that was a really depressing book.   It takes you a couple of days to shake that feeling off but, with that, you get the feeling that you have looked behind the façade and now know the real person, flawed, silently suffering and in her 60s and still striving to be liked, hence the no one knows what goes on behind closed doors analogy.   I would recommend this to readers who enjoy biographical reads.   I would recommend it to anyone who likes Sally Field and who would like to learn about her life with the caveat that people are complex and be ready to learn a lot of things that you might not want to know.    I would liken this book to someone ripping a bandage off and showing you the wound underneath.  Maybe you can look at the wound and not be phased by it, but, maybe not.   A good book but a sad life.

 - Shirley J.