Thicker than Water: A Memoir

Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of sexual assault, infertility issues, and disordered eating and exercise.

The memoir’s author, Kerry Marisa Washington Asomugha (known as “Kerry Washington”), was born in the Bronx to Valerie and Earl Washington. She did not learn until she was in her forties that her father was an anonymous sperm donor that Valerie’s doctor recommended after experiencing infertility struggles. Kerry wrestled with her identity throughout her childhood and career as an actor, unsure of what was missing from her life. This emotional struggle also manifested in a lack of connection with her own body.

Kerry describes how she felt pressured to be perfect because her parents wanted to project an image that their family had no problems or secrets. Kerry describes how this was part of what made her role on Scandal familiar: “I had for my entire life felt an intense pressure to succeed, to get everything unendingly right. And of course, one of the things that I learned while playing Olivia Pope is that she did, too” (16-17). However, she realized during her time as Olivia Pope that playing a confident, assertive, and complicated character would help her embrace those parts of herself too. At first, acting was a way for her to escape her own life, using her imagination to inhabit another person’s thoughts and feelings to replace her lack of trust or understanding in herself.