We’ve Decided to Go in a Different Direction: Essays

Former casting director Sanchez debuts with a funny and poignant memoir-in-essays about the highs and lows of her Hollywood career. After spending more than a decade as executive vice president of casting at Fox and having worked her way up from a temp desk at Warner Bros., Sanchez had the rug pulled out from under her in 2020 when the network declined to renew her contract. Reeling from the unexpected blow, she turned to her husband, New Girl actor Max Greenfield, for support and set out to learn who she was apart from her career. In the midst of that grueling process, she dealt with news that her father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. While chronicling those developments, Sanchez flashes back to the early days of her relationship with Greenfield, including their temporary breakup before he entered rehab for drug and alcohol abuse. Sanchez’s bluntness amuses (“Sorry. It’s been nearly four years since that fateful Zoom call, and I’m still running hot,” she quips after recounting her layoff from Fox), and she manages to make her specific crises feel universal. This raw reflection resonates far beyond the confines of Tinseltown. Agent: Andy McNicol, AM Studio. (Apr.)