Tom Hanks is standing by his daughter, E.A. Hanks, as she bravely shares her difficult past in a new memoir, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road. The book details a childhood shaped by divorce, instability, and emotional and physical abuse, and the Oscar-winning actor is offering his full support.

E.A., short for Elizabeth Anne, is the daughter of Hanks and the late actress Susan Dillingham (also known as Samantha Lewes). After her parents’ divorce in 1987, she lived with her mom in Sacramento, while visiting her dad in Los Angeles on weekends and summers.

But according to E.A., life with her mother was far from easy. She writes about a house that smelled like smoke, a fridge that was often empty or filled with expired food, and a backyard so full of dog waste it was impossible to walk through. “My mother spent more and more time in her big four-poster bed, poring over the Bible,” she wrote.

Though her mother was never officially diagnosed, E.A. believes she struggled with bipolar disorder and bouts of paranoia. “From 5 to 14, years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love,” she shared in one passage.

The turning point came when her mother’s emotional abuse turned physical. “One night, her emotional violence became physical violence,” E.A. wrote. “And in the aftermath I moved to Los Angeles, right smack in the middle of the seventh grade.”

Her mother later called during E.A.’s senior year of high school to say she was dying. Susan Dillingham passed away in 2002 from lung cancer at the age of 49.

Despite the pain shared in the memoir, Tom Hanks has nothing but admiration for his daughter’s courage. Speaking at the red carpet premiere of his film The Phoenician Scheme, he told Access Hollywood, “She’s a knockout, always has been.”

“I’m not surprised that my daughter had the wherewithal as well as the curiosity — as well as, I’m going to say perhaps a shoot-herself-in-the-foot kind of wherewithal — in order to examine this thing that I think she was incredibly honest about,” he said.

Hanks also reflected on parenting, noting that a child’s personality begins to show very early. “If you’ve had kids, you realize that you see who they are when they’re about six weeks old,” he said. “Their temper, the way they see the world is demonstrated in their body language and on their face.”

But perhaps his most powerful comment was one of shared humanity: “We all come from checkered, cracked lives, all of us.”

E.A. Hanks' memoir is not just a story of hardship — it’s one of resilience, truth, and the power of speaking out. And with her father’s open-hearted support, she’s showing others that healing is possible, even from the most painful past.