The season of celebrity scandals is in full swing, and the latest stars to find themselves under the unforgiving spotlight are none other than the Hanks family. Tom Hanks, an icon of Hollywood and beloved by millions, is now at the center of a personal storm as his daughter, E.A. Hanks, drops a memoir that promises to shed light on some long-hidden family secrets. The book, The 10: A Memoir of Family And The Open Road reveals more than fans ever expected about the Hanks family dynamic and the tumultuous past that shaped E.A.’s life.
E.A., born Elizabeth Anne Hanks, is the younger daughter of Tom Hanks with his first wife, Susan Dillingham (Samantha Lewes). While Tom’s public life has been a picture of stability and success, E.A.’s upbringing tells a very different story. In her memoir, the 42-year-old reflects on the years of chaos and upheaval that marked her childhood, uncovering startling truths about her family’s history.
The first shocker? The day her mother, Susan, decided to uproot E.A. and her older brother, Colin, from their life in Sacramento, California, and relocate them to Los Angeles — without informing their famous father. “My dad came to pick us up from school, and we’re not there,” E.A. writes. “And it turns out we haven’t been there for two weeks and he has to track us down.” In the memoir, E.A. describes how her mother’s mental health struggles, though never formally diagnosed, led her to believe that Susan suffered from bipolar disorder, marked by extreme episodes of paranoia and delusion.
For E.A., this was just one of many bewildering and painful moments that defined her relationship with her mother, whom she remembers as distant and emotionally volatile. Her book not only reveals the hardships of growing up in a household marked by instability but also offers a poignant exploration of her mother’s inner turmoil, which often spilled over into violence.
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In one particularly moving passage, E.A. reflects on her life as “the kid from the first (non-famous) marriage,” and the limited memories she has of her parents together. “My only memories of my parents in the same place at the same time are Colin’s high school graduation, then my high school graduation,” she shares. “I have one picture of me standing between my parents. In it, my mother’s best wig is slightly askew.”
E.A. was born in Burbank but moved with her mother and brother to Sacramento after the divorce, a city where she would spend most of her childhood. The house, once a symbol of suburban perfection, soon descended into disrepair. E.A. describes the backyard, once pristine, as becoming “so full of dog shit that you couldn’t walk around it,” and the fridge often remained either empty or filled with expired food. “My mother spent more and more time in her big four-poster bed, poring over the Bible,” she writes, painting a picture of a household struggling to survive both emotionally and financially.
“From 5 to 14, years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love, I was a Sacramento girl,” she writes. At age 14, E.A. was thrust into a new life when she moved to Los Angeles after an explosive episode of emotional and physical violence at home. What followed was an equally confusing custody arrangement, with E.A. living primarily in Los Angeles with her father, stepmother, and soon-to-arrive half-brothers, while visiting her mother in Sacramento on weekends and holidays.
The memoir also chronicles a transformative road trip across America when E.A. was 14. She and her mother took a Winnebago from California to Florida, a journey that left E.A. with mixed emotions. She describes the Winnebago’s “lumbering gait” as having a “nautical” feel, capturing the strange blend of isolation and camaraderie she shared with her mother during the journey. And then in a haunting revelation, E.A. recounts a phone call from her mother during her senior year of high school, in which Susan told her she was dying.
In a world where the gloss of Hollywood often obscures the messier realities behind closed doors, the secrets this book reveals might just be more severe than anyone could imagine.
