Review of "Brother and Sister: A Memoir" by Diane Keaton

 

Diane Keaton

Award winning actress Diane Keaton grew up with her parents, a brother, and two sisters in the Los Angeles area. Diane's mother, Dorothy Hall, was a homemaker and amateur photographer who enjoyed chronicling her children's lives; and Diane's father, Jack Hall, was a successful civil engineer.


Diane Keaton's parents, Dorothy and Jack Hall


Diane Keaton (second from left) with her brother, sisters, and mother

Diane has written previous memoirs about her life and devotes this book largely to her brother Randy, who suffered from mental health problems all his life. Diane provides a compelling account of a family with a troubled member, and laments not always helping Randy as much as she could.

Diane, the oldest child, was born in 1946 and her brother Randy came along two years later.


Diane Keaton and her brother Randy Hall as toddlers

As youngsters, Diane and Randy shared a room, and Diane recalls, "For many years, when we were young, I saw Randy as an inexplicable burden. He was a nuisance, a scaredy-cat, and a crybaby. As we got older, he became an absent presence. I avoided him as my life got busier while his got smaller and more difficult."


Diane Keaton and her brother Randy Hall as small children

More recently, Diane perused her mother's journals, scrapbooks, photos, clippings, and letters, which allowed her to see Randy from a different perspective. Diane notes, "I've gotten closer to who he is and what he means to me", and she writes, "Dear, dear Randy, I do love you."

Unlike Diane, Dorothy saw Randy as a sensitive soul, though her view was likely clouded by mother love. Some of the entries in Dorothy's journals read, "Randy is just the kind of little boy I think all boys should be....His little temper explosions are very infrequent....He plays by himself in the house.....Randy won't attend Sunday school unless I go and stay with him....he [has a ] tendency to tag after me at all times....he's too frightened....even on hot nights he insists I put a blanket on him 'To keep the dark out'." In retrospect, these behaviors foreshadowed Randy's later problems, though his mother always believed he had promise.


Schoolboy Randy Hall

Diane recalls that as a pre-adolescent, "Randy [always] retreated to his bedroom. It was there that his preteen fantasies took form."


Adolescent Randy Hall

When Randy grew up, he wrote Diane a letter describing his youthful fantasy life. It read, in part: "In puberty I started getting fantasies...I became addicted to watching horror movies, hoping the films would have some gruesome murder of a woman....I'll never forget the day I found the Playboy magazine....I looked inside and saw a woman with all this cleavage leaning against a fence...the fantasies [it fueled] were startling and violent. When I thought about sex it was always with a knife....You can't imagine what it's like to actually start planning how to get a pretty woman and kill her....My fantasies are even worse now, but at least I now know they're fantasies."


Teenage Randy Hall

Some of Randy's troubles may have arisen from a dysfunctional relationship with his father. Jack Hall was an ambitious, hard-working man who expected his children to follow in his footsteps. Jack wanted his offspring to study hard, work hard, and become successful. However, young Randy was a frightened boy who hid in his room and adult Randy was a frightened man who wrote poems, made collages, and couldn't hold down a job.


Randy Hall as a young man

Jack constantly reprimanded and pushed his son, and - in Randy's eyes - Jack was a VERY scary man. An indulgent mother and hard-driving father may have contributed to Randy's anxiety and confusion.

Despite Randy's troubles, he did manage to sustain a relationship long enough to get married. Randy and his wife Sally split after a couple of years, though, and Randy became more withdrawn than ever..... and a serious alcoholic. Randy drank hard for the rest of his life, and required a liver transplant at one point. The operation was A-listed because of Diane's fame and resources, and - in truth - there may have been a more deserving recipient for the liver.....but that's the way of the world.

Randy was a creative soul, and Diane includes some of his poems, letters, writings, and collages to illustrate her brother's thoughts and abilities. Sadly, Randy wasn't able to channel his talents into a successful career.


A collage by Randy Hall

Despite psychiatric care - and family members helping when they could - Randy's life was a long downhill slide, lubricated by constant drinking. When Randy could no longer live alone - even with caregivers - he was moved to an assisted living facility. By then, Diane was reconciled with her brother. She writes, "Randy and I began to develop a weekend ritual. Down the block and across the street from the Belmont [assistant living home] was a Foster's Freeze, home to our very favorite soft-serve vanilla cone with nuts on top. Once we had them in our hands, we'd get into my car and tool around Burbank, looking for a neighborhood we wanted to explore."


Foster's Freeze


Golden age Randy Hall


Golden age Diane Keaton

Randy's mind continued to fade however, and Diane observes, "Randy is disappearing. The inevitable truth of goodbye fills me with remorse and also guilt. If only I could find one paragraph in Mom's journals that describes me as helping him out with his ABCs, or letting him go before me to sit on Santa Claus's lap. If only I could find one photograph in the dozens of the Hall family scrapbooks that documented me patting him on the back for a job well done.....or giving him my very own box of See's candy as a gesture of kindness.....If only." There may be a lesson here, about compassion.


See's candy

Diane also includes sections about other family members: her sisters Robin and Dorrie, who helped Randy as much as they could; and her parents, who disagreed about Randy, and - perhaps as a result - drank and fought too much. Still, the Hall family was a loving clan that made good memories together, though Randy was unable to share in most of them.


Diane Keaton's sister Robin


Diane Keaton with her sister Dorrie

This is a compelling story that might help other families gain insight into a troubled individual in their midst. 

Rating: 4 stars