TELL ME EVERYTHING

An actor’s account of growing up with her erratic single mother.

Beautiful and childlike, Kelly’s mother, Maureen, was a charming drug addict who treated her daughter like her “favorite playmate.” Maureen thought nothing of taking Minka with her to the Hollywood strip club where she worked or home with the men on whom she depended. They moved often, sometimes living in places like storage units and friends’ garages; yet Maureen, “who brought the party wherever she went,” always managed to turn difficulty into a magical adventure. By the time the author was in middle school, Maureen, who had worn out her welcome with every friend in Los Angeles, decided to move to Albuquerque to stay with the bighearted Mexican American family of an ex-lover named David. Kelly readily embraced the warmth of her new environment and learned how to fight against those who bullied her for being a “white girl.” At the same time, she began repeating her mother’s patterns of behavior by seeking out men “to confirm my worth.” When her mother and David suddenly left Albuquerque when Kelly was 16, she began working in a peep show for money to live independently before going to LA with the help of her estranged father. There, she became a scrub nurse, fell out with her increasingly volatile mother, and studied acting. Not long into her new life, Kelly received invitations to do commercials and guest appearances on TV shows, and then she landed a starring role in the hit series Friday Night Lights. Rather than shield Kelly from her past, however, fame forced her into an excruciating but necessary confrontation with it and her troubled—and now dying—mother. The author is not shy about discussing difficult topics, and this candid text will appeal to Kelly’s fans and to readers seeking a courageous story of self-acceptance.

A generous and humane memoir.