Synopses & Reviews
Carol Burnett spent most of her childhood in a Depression-scarred Hollywood neighborhood, where she lived in a single-room apartment with her endearingly batty grandmother, Nanny, a hypochondriacal Christian Scientist with a buried past. The child of two alcoholic parents, Burnett presents a sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking coming-of-age: from her sadly hopeful mother, who was hooked on Tinseltown fantasy, to the first signs of her own comic gift; from happy weekends spent with her father, to their last tragic meeting in a public sanatorium.
Featuring a new Afterword by the author, about teaming up with her daughter to bring this story to Broadway, One More Time is an intimate, touching, and astonishing narrative of a financially desperate but emotionally rich childhood on the wrong side of Hollywoods tracks.
Review
"The spirit of its ending is very much like the ending of one of Burnett's variety TV shows, when she comes out to say good night, and you momentarily sense that you're not just looking at an entertainer you're looking into the face of a human being." Los Angeles Times Book Review
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"A first-rate job of storytelling....[Burnett has] the skill of a novelist." Chicago Tribune
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"This feels like Edward Albee territory....Surviving and struggling are what this book is about, and what gives it life....Often moving and always honest." The Washington Post
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"[F]rank, moving....This memoir is a Cinderella tale by a woman stronger than her family and perhaps luckier. She built a career with grit and a little help from friends she thanks in her zesty story." Publishers Weekly
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"Behind every great comedian lies a story...as rich in pathos as it is in humor." USA Today
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"For the most part one is swept up in Burnett's account of her confused and often messy childhood." Library Journal
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"Carol Burnett's memoir is like the woman herself: humorous, earthy, and honest....YAs need not be fans of Carol Burnett's popular television show to appreciate her compassion and wit." School Library Journal