The Sane One

In this blisteringly raw and emotional coming-of-age memoir, the brilliant co-creator of Hulu‘s Pen15 grapples with the reappearance of her estranged father—and whether it‘s possible to reconnect. The doorbell rings again. The man on the other side is a mirror image of me, same hair, cheeks and nose. I haven’t seen him for many years. “Hi Dad.” “Hi; Anna.” He almost never said my name. “It’s been so long.” For Anna Konkle’s entire childhood, her father was her hero—a hyper-charismatic, larger-than-life human resource manager at 7-Eleven. He loved her dearly and was the pillar of her existence. But that closeness was constantly interrupted by the intense screaming matches and heavy silences between him and her mother, culminating in a bitter divorce that literally split the family house down the middle, with one parent on each side. College is freedom, and Anna fills her time dating West Point cadets, waiting tables at fancy restaurants, and getting lackluster acting gigs, the strangest of which has her working celebrity Halloween parties. But just as she starts to thrive, her father starts to struggle. When she moves to LA after college to pursue acting and writing, her dad’s increasingly erratic behavior culminates in a severe episode that forces her to cut off contact with him. Showing up at her door all these years later, he has come to LA for cancer treatment. As they attempt to repair their relationship and regain the incredible bond they once shared, Anna worries that there may be too many traumas and too little time to heal from them. Written in intimately beautiful prose, The Sane One is a tragicomic memoir of growing up, falling apart, getting older, and trying to come back together before it’s too late.