Laura Dern and Diane Ladd always had a close relationship, but the stakes were raised when Diane developed a sudden life-threatening illness. Diane's doctor prescribed long walks to build back her lung capacity. The exertion was challenging, and Laura soon learned the best way to distract her mom was to get her talking and telling stories. Their conversations along the way began to break down the traditional barriers between mothers and daughters. They discussed the most personal topics: love, sex, marriage, divorce, art, ambition, and legacy. In Honey, Baby, Mine, Laura and Diane share these conversations, as well as reflections and anecdotes, taking readers on an intimate tour of their lives.
If you’re in it for the stargazing, you’ll be rewarded with plenty — but that’s not what lingers most after the telling ... As actors, Dern and Ladd have spent decades peeling back layers to reveal their characters’ fears and desires. It’s when they turn that focus to each other and themselves that something remarkable emerges ... At first it seems a bit repetitive ... They tell funny anecdotes ... Then the tone shifts. On a later walk, Dern admits that she often resented being left with her grandmother while Ladd was away for work. A suddenly emotional Ladd says she sometimes felt unfairly burdened with the responsibility of supporting not only her daughter but her mother ... The book is at its most memorable and affecting when they work up the courage to excavate heavy, sharp-edged emotional artifacts ... They yell, grow quiet, accuse and forgive, allowing us to witness their relationship evolving, walk by walk. Ladd’s health improves. Dern draws even closer to her mother. For them, the experiment proves successful. For readers, it may depend on what we come for. I recommend going into Honey, Baby, Mine curious about the origin stories, separate and intertwined, of two prolific artists who pushed through private challenges — are pushing through still — while forging lives in the public eye.
A brilliant end-run around the one-sidedness of a traditional memoir ... The exchanges convey a rich mixture of love, exasperation, nostalgia and resentment that will be familiar to anyone who has ever been a mother or a daughter. At the same time, they offer rare glimpses behind the curtain of two great Hollywood careers.
Mostly a series of heartwarming personal conversations between a daughter and her sick mom. Even the hardest of hearts might shed a tear or two thanks to the ways in which this book forces the reader to consider their own relationship with their mother ... But it also dishes the occasional Hollywood gossip, even if it is in a wholesome kind of way that one familiar with Dern’s general Southern affect would expect ... And while the intimate stories may seem like a vulnerable glimpse into the lives of these two women, it is difficult to discern, given their cognizance of the fact that their conversations will be made public, how much of that vulnerability is genuine.
