They Went Another Way: A Hollywood Memoir

New Yorker cartoonist Kaplan’s second memoir (following 2015’s I Was a Child) chronicles his life in 2022 as he attempts to launch a new television project. Through daily—and sometimes hourly—journal entries, Kaplan chronicles his experience with his original project and other potential projects. Besides his professional struggles, he shares thoughts on current politics (including the war in Ukraine and the overturning of Roe v. Wade); raising two teenagers and his family’s choice to move from Los Angeles to New York City; his varied attempts at vegan cooking; and the seemingly endless house repairs. Kaplan’s play-by-play of the mundane aspects of life—from needing to go to the grocery store multiple times a day to driving his children to school and volleyball practice—alongside his struggles to move anything forward in Hollywood make for a humorous and deeply introspective memoir. Some may feel the spoiler title is like reading a mystery whose ending has been broadcasted.