At age 71, Sally Field has written a brutally honest account of her life that takes on difficult topics including the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather as a child.
“In Pieces” (Grand Central, 416 pp., ★★★ out of four stars, on sale Sept. 18) was written by Field herself, a rarity in the world of celebrity memoirs.
It’s a complex cri de coeur, alternately shockingly frank and maddeningly cryptic. The two-time Oscar winner devotes more than three-quarters of the book to her childhood and her life through the 1970s, when she became involved with Burt Reynolds on the set of “Smokey and the Bandit.”
She writes of an abortion she had when she was 17, right before her first starring TV role, in the 1960s sitcom “Gidget”; a #MeToo moment when she woke up, drugged, with songwriter Jimmy Webb “grinding away” on top of her; the eating disorder she struggled with as a young TV star; the day Davy Jones of The Monkees made a sexual innuendo about her; and how hard she fought to play Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film “Lincoln” opposite Daniel Day-Lewis.
But mostly, Field tries to unravel her hurtful relationship with her mother (how much did she know about the sexual abuse?) and understand the anger she’s felt much of her life.
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