Along the Way

May 14, 2012
Icons of the silver screen and father/son duo Sheen and Estevez reminisce on their careers, lives, and relationship in this engaging dual memoir. In alternating chapters, each actor describes the difficulties and triumphs of making it in showbiz, as well as the struggles intrinsic to any father/son relationship. The stories hinge on the making of The Way, a new movie directed by Estevez, and featuring Sheen as a father bearing his son's ashes across Spain's 500-mile Camino de Santiago. Sheen remembers his Spanish roots and his resilient immigrant father; Estevez recalls in a vivid picaresque his childhood years spent abroad as his father made movies. In addition to reflections on each man's philosophies, intimacies, and misunderstandings, exciting events abound, as when Sheen eschews a stunt-double and leaps into a frigid river while shooting The Way. While Sheen struggled with a dark, demanding script during filming for Apocalypse Now in the Philippines, Estevezâthen a teenagerâremembers the night a local tribe "sacrificed a water buffalo by hacking off its head in four brutal blowsâ¦It was horrifying and fascinating at the same time, primitive yet reverent, painful to watch but impossible to turn my eyes away from." From fist fighting in a Philippine cabana to spiritual awakenings in India, readers will revel in the exploits of this dynamic and charming duo.