Honey, baby, mine A mother and daughter talk life, death, love (and banana pudding)

Faced with the terrifying possibility that her celebrated actor mother, Diane Ladd, had six months to live, award-winning actor Laura Dern determined to carry out two projects. The first was getting her mother to walk for 15 minutes a day, an intensely painful activity for Ladd but the one thing doctors said could help heal her severely scarred lungs. The second project was recording their walking conversations: talks that let them reminisce, surprise one another, recall old hurts, occasionally revise the other's memory, and, quite often, laugh (and Ladd cough), and that became this book. It's an exercise in presence met with urgency--just making it to the next bench, asking that question now or never--that offers such uncanny utterances as, "Remember when you were eight and we went on that cruise with Erica Jong?" Family photos, recipes, playbills, handwritten notes, and individual asides break up the conversation transcripts. From their favorite colors to the legacy they share as single mothers and award-winning artists, this becomes a very full and generous picture of a mother and daughter, imbued with genuine gratitude. Having already outlived her prognosis, Ladd says, "Our talking and your love have prolonged my life, I just know it." It's quite special to witness. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The actress-authors' friend and book-club maven Reese Witherspoon provides a foreword, ensuring that this star-filled, buzzed-about book will be a sure-fire hit.