I feel a rising anger that there is yet another byproduct of this punishment: making the familiar unfamiliar. Making it unsafe. Could all the good things in my life with the removal of a few key elements all become ghosts? In this intimate, beautifully crafted collection, Driver writes with disarming charm and candor about her bohemian upbringing between England and Barbados; her post-university travails and triumphs—from being the only student in her acting school not taken on by an agent to being discovered at a rave in a muddy field in the English countryside; shooting to fame in one of the most influential films of the 1990s and being nominated for an Academy Award; and finding the true light of her life, her son. She chronicles her unconventional career path, including the time she gave up on acting to sell jeans in Uruguay, her journey as a single parent, and the heartbreaking loss of her mother. Just before the release of her first book, Driver spoke to W over the phone, calling from her home in Malibu after a morning of surfing in the Pacific Ocean. She got into her writing process, her favorite authors, and whether or not she’ll write some more books in the future.

The audiobook also includes a postscript in which Driver is interviewed by the screenwriter and novelist Emma Forrest about the writing process, after which, in a tribute to her first botched TV appearance at the age of nine, Driver sings the song “They Said It Was My Tree”, stifling giggles throughout.

See you soon

When I look at my life from the alleged halfway point, some patterns are revealed: one, that the story does not necessarily begin or end where it should; two, happy endings are overrated. And three, happy endings are almost never the end.

We have all been charmed by Minnie Driver on the screen, but it’s a divine pleasure to learn the woman behind some of our most beloved characters is a writer of true precision, wit and style who has had a life more compelling than any movie. This book will be a companion to those struggling to make sense of their own story and a clarion call to mothers (of all kinds) grappling with their identity. I was comforted, galvanized, touched and - no surprise considering the author - charmed, too. — Lena Dunham The Vernon God Little author reads his latest book about his adventures in Trinidad trying to make a film featuring a parrot. This celebrity's guardedness and walls are way up as we learn very little about Minnie Driver in a disappointing autobiography that only gives glimpses of her life story. There are just 5 or 6 real stories within, the rest of it being small thoughts about different times of her life with few specifics and huge gaps in her timeline. And if you're looking for any insights into her film or TV work you'll find none here because she says nothing about her work on sets and skips most of her productions. All night as she leaves in and out of sleep and deep pain, We talk about food. The nursery food of her childhood, learning to love the disgusting when everything good was rationed during the war, her lifelong love of butter and how bread was good but really just a butter vessel.This memoir gives you a good sense of Minnie’s Driver’s personality, passions, and unorthodox life: she’s funny, intelligent, and she knows how to tell a story. Although she had a lot of success in her early 20s, in an important sense - certainly in terms of motherhood and finding a life partner - she was a late bloomer. So “Managing Expectations” is often at its strongest in its more intimate moments, when she seeks the kinds of connections she was denied as a child and could only fake for the cameras. She’s thrilled at becoming pregnant at 37, despite being told her age and a bend in her uterus made it unlikely. (“A geriatric, toilet-shaped uterus had made my baby. I was a National Enquirer headline.”) Sneaking her way home by boat to Malibu, California, which was closed off due to wildfires, she ponders her failed relationships: “I cut through the water with a speed I’d been saving recently for sprinting away from bad thoughts.” It was such a long time ago, before Covid. I took my son to the Greek to see Bastille because he’s a really big Bastille fan. We were at the very front; it was my son’s first big concert. It was pretty great, but mostly because I was watching it through Henry’s eyes.

From the death bed - last few days of living and dying -Minne’s mom talked about food — great meals shared — The structure of the book is particularly interesting. Driver makes no effort to connect all the dots of her life; instead, the reader gets a series of stories, all representative in their way. It’s Driver’s top ten of the really important stuff, ending with her mother’s death.Fans are more emotional when they see an actor trying NOT to cry then when they are actually crying. Women sit on the edge with their legs dangling in the water while their children scream mom! Watch this! and then proceed to perform no particular feat beyond splashing around, illustrating some thing I have always known which is that 90% of good parenting is bearing witness. So, this is a collection of stories about how things not working out - worked out in the end. How reaching for the dream is easily more interesting, expansive, sad and funny than the dream itself coming true. But it’s worth it to start at the beginning of Driver’s book, which is full of pithy and sharp recollections of her rebelliousness and determination. As a child, she was frustrated at her parents’ split, chafing at their new partners and seeking escape. Sometimes those escapes were metaphorical retreats into singing and acting. Others involved real distance: In one chapter, she recalls offending her father’s girlfriend so badly that her dad sent 11-year old Driver home to England from Barbados by herself. At a stopover in a Miami hotel, she all but clears out the gift shop, and the grown-up Driver can see her sublimating her anger at the way “new people wander into our landscape and nobody but me thinks it’s weird.”