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Book Review of My Mother Was Nuts

My Mother Was Nuts
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Marshall's memoir will be of most interest to people who remember "LaVerne & Shirley", "All in the Family" and "Happy Days". She tells some interesting stories, but nothing is particularly earth-shaking.

If you're looking for the tale of a kid growing up with a wonderful, wacky family (as the title would seem to imply), you're going to be disappointed. The parents Marshall describes were angry, bitter people, locked in a marriage that had gone far past loveless. One wonders why, even in the divorce-rare era of mid-Century America, they didn't simply move to end the conflict.

For whatever reason, Marshall and her brother Garry (creator of "Happy Days", director of "The Princess Diaries" and "Runaway Bride", among others) grew up to be major players in the entertainment industry of the 1970s and 80s. Her ramble down Memory Lane, via SNL and other hotspots, will amuse but not particularly engage the reader, and her inside stories of films like "Big", "A League of Their Own", and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" may send you off to Netflix to revisit them.