Two of Me: Notes of Living and Leaving

by Eleanor Coppola

What did I have to lose? I was going to die anyway.
A terrifying, rare cancer diagnosis prompted Eleanor Coppola to confront her role as the matriarch of an accomplished film family and her creative challenges as an artist late in life.
Her new and final book is an honest and revealing posthumous memoir about her struggle to balance her role as a wife and mother and her career as a writer and filmmaker (including the 1979 book Notes: On the making of Apocalypse Now, and the 1991 documentary film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse).
Her story is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and details the final years of her life over periods of creative growth and resilience despite artistic and physical setbacks.
Featuring an introduction by Sofia Coppola and an afterword by Alice Waters.

Genres: Nonfiction

215 pages, Paperback

Published November 11, 2025

Reviews

[Christian Maric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eleanor Coppola has many insightful, beautiful reflections about family and the disadvantages she faced in her career and personal life due to sexism. She also has a lot of cringey, privileged passages where she bemoans spending covid in her Napa mansion with 30 family members in her bubble, or decries the critical failure of her debut narrative movie despite admitting to not adequately preparing or even knowing what her responsibilities were on set. It is also agonizing to read her mistrust of western medicine and dependence on alternative remedial routes to treat her cancer, which eventually led to her passing.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished my first book of 2026, going in completely blind. Along the way, I was surprised by how much I shared with Ellie—especially being married to a showman artist who’s always in motion, while I’m more content staying home. Her life offered a perspective I didn’t know I needed, and I’m grateful for it.

[Patrick Sars · Rating 4 out of 5]

honest & introspective!