E.A. Hanks on Her Memoir, Childhood Abuse, and "Hanks Cola"

Childhood Trauma and Mother's Abuse

• 💡 E.A. Hanks discusses her new memoir, "The Ten," which details her difficult childhood and her mother's abuse.
• 🧠 Her mother suffered from paranoid bipolar disorder with delusional tendencies, often hearing voices and exhibiting unpredictable behavior.
• ⚠️ Hanks lived in constant fear due to her mother's unlimited temper and the instability of her moods.
• 📚 The memoir recreates a road trip taken with her mother along Interstate 10 to unearth and come to terms with her past.

Physical Abuse and Intervention

• 💥 A turning point occurred when her mother physically assaulted her, an event that led to a custody switch.
• ⚖️ Intervention by her father, Tom Hanks, was enabled by the legal system once receipts of physical abuse were established.
• 👨‍👧‍👦 While her father intervened, Hanks acknowledges the complexities of family law and the need for concrete evidence to cross the legal threshold.

"Hanks Cola" and Catastrophic Fame

• 🥤 Hanks describes the phenomenon surrounding her father as "Hanks Cola": a widely recognized and consumed brand that, in excess, can be detrimental.
• 🎭 She explains that catastrophic fame can lead to the eradication of parts of one's humanity, with people forgetting the artist behind the brand.
• 📉 This public perception creates a divide between the brand and the human being, impacting everyone associated with it.

Pseudonym and Online Identity

• ✍️ E.A. Hanks adopted her pseudonym partly due to her experiences at The Huffington Post, navigating a misogynistic online commentariat.
• 🔍 The name also served a practical purpose for search engine optimization (SEO), making her articles easier to find than if she had used her full name, which would have been conflated with her father's and other public figures'.