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The Sane One

A Memoir by the Co-creator of Pen15
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The Sane One

By: Anna Konkle
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About this listen

 In this emotional and laugh-out-loud coming-of-age memoir, the co-creator of Hulu's brilliant Pen15 grapples with the reappearance of her estranged father —and whether it's possible to reconnect before it’s too late.

For Anna Konkle’s childhood, her father was her hero—a hyper-charismatic, larger-than-life human resource manager at 7-Eleven. But their closeness was constantly interrupted by the screaming matches and heavy silences between him and her mother, eventually culminating in a bitter divorce that literally split the family house down the middle, with one parent on each side.

College felt like freedom, and Anna filled her time searching for the husband she'd never divorce and the orgasm she'd never had, while waiting tables at fancy restaurants and getting lackluster acting gigs, the strangest of which had her working celebrity Halloween parties. But just as she begins to thrive, her father starts to struggle. Not long after she moves to LA to pursue acting and writing, her dad’s increasingly erratic behavior forces her to cut off contact with him, until, years later, he knocks at her door.

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 while there’s still time. Dysfunctional Families Entertainment & Celebrities Parenting & Families Relationships

Critic reviews

“Anna Konkle perfectly captures the awkwardness and drilled-down truth of emerging from the tumult of a stressful childhood to see and embrace your family just as they are. It’s frank and funny and questioning and generous and heartbreaking all at once, without ever compromising her own nuanced truth.”—Gabrielle Hamilton, author of Next of Kin

“Anna Konkle brings her extraordinary gift for conveying childhood's agonies and ecstasies to this poignant family memoir—at once a powerful portrait of the brilliant millennial artist and a nuanced account of reckoning with, and eventually making peace with, flawed parents.”—Ada Calhoun, the New York Times-bestselling author of Also a Poet

“Along with Maya Erskine, we have Konkle to thank for Pen15—the best television show in recent history/apex nostalgia object for elder millennials. The Sane One is a memoir building on subjects Konkle’s loosely autobiographical teen avatar teased in the show—namely, stressful dads and a traumatic divorce. If “Na’s” rollicking and vulnerable screenwriting voice is anything to go by, this true tale of tricky wonder years should be a hilarious shot to the heart.”—Literary Hub, Most Anticipated
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