Other than playing the character of Abilene in the film The Help, I was unaware of Viola Davis as an actress. A huge success in both stage and screen, she has won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, and a Tony. Very few actors have won all four (EGOT) of these major entertainment awards. 

What makes this success even more astounding is the background she comes from: abject poverty, constant physical violence between her parents, sexual assault, traumatic bullying at school, constant hunger, chronic eviction—even from rat invested apartments lacking electricity or hot water. But at some point during her childhood, when they had a TV that worked, she saw an actress who looked like her, and she decided that would be her future.

This memoir, telling her story in raw and horrific detail, ultimately reveals that it has taken most of her life to truly find herself and to embrace that as a dark skinned, Black woman, she’s earned her success and accolades, rising to the top in an industry rife with racism and sexism. 

What’s far less successful is her writing. This memoir is disjointed and repetitive, more like a stream of consciousness journal chronicling her life than a memoir with an editor. For example, on a single page, she writes about losing a friend, driving from California to New York, her first opening on Broadway (Seven Guitars), adopting a baby, getting married, and winning an Oscar. Each of these gets about three sentences with little information or emotion tying them together.

But occasionally, she creates a powerful, focused scene. At the height of her success, she’s sitting in her kitchen of “marble and porcelain with a subzero refrigerator” telling her mom about the time when she and her siblings were sexually abused by their brother. Her mom remains absolutely silent, and Viola writes, “the only sign that something had shifted in her was her uneaten toast.”

More scenes like that, and less retelling of every memory from her life would really improve the book.