Brother & Sister: A Memoir

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From beloved film star Diane Keaton, a heartfelt memoir about her relationship with her younger brother and a poignant exploration of the divergent paths siblings’ lives can take.

“[A] brave memoir . . . Keaton takes a long, hard look at her relationship with her younger brother, Randy, whose descent into mental illness parallels her climb to the stratosphere of stardom.” —The New York Times Book Review

When they were kids in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1950s, Diane Keaton and her younger brother, Randy, were best friends and companions. But as they grew up, Randy became troubled, then reclusive. Before he was thirty, he was divorced, an alcoholic, a man who couldn’t hold on to full-time work—his life a world away from his sister’s, and from the rest of their family.

Here Diane Keaton delves into the nuances of their shared, and separate, pasts to confront the difficult question of why and how Randy ended up living his life on “the other side of normal.” In beautiful and fearless prose intertwined with journal entries, letters, and poetry—much of it Randy’s own—and supplemented by personal photographs and artwork, this insightful, heartfelt memoir contemplates the inner workings of a family, the ties of love and responsibility that hold it together, and the special bond between siblings—even those who are pulled far apart.