From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir

by Nancy Aniston

Engagingly written as a journal of fond memories, life experiences, lessons learned, and tragedies overcome, this is the story of the family that gave the world actress Jennifer Aniston. Written by her mother, Nancy Aniston, this tender, poetic, and charming memoir represents a healing exercise, and most importantly serves as an example of how to cope with and understand estrangement between parent and child.During the meteoric rise of Jennifer's popularity on the hit television comedy Friends, Nancy and her daughter had a misunderstanding imposed on them by a tabloid TV report. In the three years since they last spoke, Nancy learned that separation from grown children is a national epidemic and that scores of parents suffer the same feelings of pain, guilt, and shame. This knowledge inspired Nancy Aniston to record family memories in this compelling volume, "and in the process of detailed retrospection a miraculous healing took place."Nancy chronicles her own childhood of poverty, abandonment, failed marriages, and the difficult early years as a single mother. She recalls Jennifer's early love for the theater, the therapists, career managers, and hangers-on who endangered family bonds as she guided her daughter through the exciting, sometimes disappointing, stages of an acting career that came to realize phenomenal success.While refusing the lure of celebrity gossip, Nancy Aniston strives to secure her story's inherent dignity, hoping it will be helpful to those trying to overcome their own childhood trauma, fallout from divorce, single-parenting issues, and the "dark hole of child/parent estrangement."

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

278 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1999

Reviews

[Bonnie Morse · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bitch, please.

[Oda · Rating 1 out of 5]

You can’t «make a deal with God» Nancy. And to have that expectation and narcissistic outlook on life, I can only imagine how bitter she got when things did not go her way. Which came out as “rage”.

I realize it can be comforting to read this book as someone who did fail as a parent to the point where their kids cannot stand them anymore. To read another estranged mother’s “point of view”. I also understand wanting to read this as a huge fan of Jennifer Aniston. Also kind of interesting as a case study for personality disorders. That’s it

If you are a parent struggling with the aftermath of your children cutting you out of their lives, maybe focus on becoming a better person. Be kinder, do some charity. Help someone, instead of sitting and patting yourself on the back saying you did nothing wrong, and actively looking for that reaffirmation

[bluesequin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, I'm...astounded by the sheer awfulness that is Mrs. Aniston. I don't even know where to begin. The myopia, the hypocrisy, the artifice.... It's a miracle her daughter came out the other end with such strength and integrity. This book is only valuable as an inside look at a textbook narcissist.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, being a mother his hard. For 17 years of your child's life you are their everything and they are yours, 24/7, 365 days a year. Then all of a sudden you have to cut the ties and let go? It's hard as hell to do that and it takes years to finally let go. I understand where Ms. Dow is coming from completely though I wouldn't have written a book about it knowing the effect it would have on my relationship with my daughter. A daughter doesn't need to be a celebrity to end up being estranged from her mother. It's a story as old as time and you never think it could happen to you. I read this book to gain insight from one mother to another. My daughters are grown and honestly, I learned many things from reading this book. One of them being..... I have to let go.

[cynthia myssy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In reading this overly self indulgent memoir , can only help one understand the estrangement between the two. It reeked of narcissism, and quite sadly personal insight and responsibility .

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wrong-headed book from a depressed jilted mother whose famous daughter won't talk to her. This was written just a few years after Jennifer Aniston stopped speaking with Nancy after mom gave a TV interview that was misconstrued through editing.

So instead of patiently waiting for reconciliation, the author makes things worse by writing a negative memoir as a form of therapy. It includes a lot of negative stuff about her famous daughter, her famous late ex-husband and her son. She throws everyone close to her under the bus out of self-admitted bitterness. Then she expects them to call come crawling back to her?

There's nothing good in this other than making her soap opera star husband look terrible and her daughter at times look even worse. This is not a way to keep friends.

[Nocturnally Tacit · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kinda pathetic.

[Courtney]

Well, this certainly wasn't boring. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Note: This "review" is for myself. Can reviews be set to private? As far as I know, they can't.

Random thoughts:
- If you replaced Nancy (and her role as mother) with any other person, it would read like an obsessive stalker novel. Enmeshment much?

- If a mother is trying to establish a healthy bond with her newly famous and estranged adult daughter, I'd think this memoir would be the last way to go about doing that. What Nancy did with her memoir was "share her truth" and/or "took control of the narrative"—kudos to that, I guess.

-I'd recommend this as a book club read for women in "mother wound" support groups.

- The relentless implications that (traditional) "family is everything" made me 🤢.

-Estranged parents, rarely do your children break ties with you because of "one incident" or "one person." Nancy blames the tabloid TV show that recruited her for her Waldorf wisdom. Aaron Rodger's parents blame Olivia Munn... Let's set the scapegoats free.

-Traumatized adults traumatize children, and then those children are given the opportunity to try to stop this abusive cycle from repeating. Bravo, Jen. You're doing it!

-On a personal note, regardless of my extreme boundaries (we have been estranged since September 2020 with an intentional meeting this past June 2024 which showed zero change in her dark triad personality leading me to back to estrangement and a full shedding of all unfounded guilt on my end... that was a mouth full 😂), my mother continues to abuse me and my siblings in conscious and unconscious ways. She is relentless. My dad died in 2021, so he gets to be free of her. May she find healing from her demons, so she can stop wounding and destroying others.

Love doesn't mean tolerating abuse. Love is the opposite of that.

[Shell Wiz · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a single mom myself I could never imagine writing about such personal and intimate moments with my children and their father and thinking they would be okay with it. And we are not famous.

What starts as a hopeful recognition of why Jennifer may have been angry and stepped away from her mother, turns to pages and pages of a woman who legit takes no responsibility for her relationships or troubles in life. She is quietly and somewhat politely ruthless about John Aniston. Often sharing things that make her seem to have unresolved issues with their divorce.

If something goes well Nancy describes how she was there for everyone. When things take a turns surely it’s because someone else is making poor choices.

Her writing style is engaging and conversational so it was not difficult to keep going. The book spends a lot of time talking about Jen.

Sadly, I didn’t ever feel Nancy ever figured out her own role in her own life.

[Mirela Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

it contains some insights about their personal life, however, Nancy just proves the attachement theory, and emphasises Jane's own point of view behind a toxic mom. In the book she constantly puts herself as innocent, and even the passing of time is not clear. Honestly, for the presevation of privacy this shouldn't have even been published.

[Sherry Wheeler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was actually Jennifer Aniston‘s mother’s memoirs, mostly of her growing up 8 had very little to do with Jennifer. It was also very chopped up and would go from one subject to another and back-and-forth throughout the whole book. I didn’t care for it at all.

[Jennifer Aniston]

How do l Find this book I really want to read it