Houston actress’s memoir unlocks ‘all the feels’ for Witherspoon
Houston native and actress Tembi Locke feels lucky that her debut memoir, “From Scratch,” was recently selected by Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon for her online book club.
Witherspoon is a voracious reader whose praise for a book is like a lottery win for any first-time author. Not since Oprah Winfrey has there been a celebrity book club that can turn emerging authors into best-sellers overnight.
“This book gives me all the feels!” Witherspoon said on the book club’s website about Locke’s book, published in April by Simon & Schuster. “I can’t wait for you to fall in love with this book the way I did.”
Witherspoon is always on the hunt for a good story about love and women, and Locke’s book fits the bill. That’s why the author’s journey speaks more about her emotional tenacity than luck.
“From Scratch” is a love story of Locke, who is black, and her late Sicilian-born chef-husband, Saro, who died of a rare form of soft-tissue cancer in 2012. For 10 years, Locke was his caregiver while for most of that time also raising the couple’s adopted daughter, Zoela, now 14. She found healing through love, her husband’s Tuscan homeland and Italian food. (Locke is fluent in Italian.)
Locke will have a reading and book signing at 7 p.m. June 14 at Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet.
The book’s cover is a photo of Locke, 48, and her husband on their wedding day. They met in Sicily when she was just 20. His family disapproved of their marriage because of her race, but they reconciled their feelings during her husband’s sickness and after his death.
Locke called Saro the love of her life, saying, “If we were in a crowded room and he left, it would feel as if the air had been sucked out of the room. Our love was anchored deeply in friendship. We had a pact with each other that we would be authentic and honest with each other.”
In 2015, Locke did a TEDx Talk, “What Forty Steps Taught Me About Love and Grief.” By 2017, she was ready to put her story down on paper.
“As I approached the fifth anniversary of his passing, I felt an urgency deep inside of me that if I didn’t share the story, I would suffer, and that’s another type of grief,” said Locke, who has played roles on TV shows such as “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “The Mentalist.”
After her husband’s death, Locke took up cooking more seriously, pouring herself into savory Italian dishes that made her feel more connected to him.
She ends her book with a collection of recipes.
Locke’s creative spirit runs in her family. Her younger sister, Attica Locke, author of “Pleasantville” and “Bluebird, Bluebird,” is currently working on her fifth novel and was a writer and producer for Fox’s “Empire.” Their father is Gene Locke, the former city attorney for Houston. Her mother, Sherra Aguirre, was raised in Lufkin, where her parents were educators.
The sisters are graduates of Alief Hastings High School; Tembi Locke later earned a degree from Wesleyan University. She moved to Los Angeles first, and her sister followed. They lived in the same apartment building, though in separate units across the hall from each other.
“We both have just followed our hearts,” Locke said of her sister. “I’m a champion for her voice in the world as much as she is a champion of my voice in the world.”
They grew up creating fantastical plays and acting out dramas on back porches, in living rooms and in front yards. For Locke, it fueled a lifelong love affair with acting.
“I love acting so,” she said. “I love coming onto a set first thing in the morning and the entire crew is there. You see the magic of cinema begin to come to life. Having worked so many years now, there’s a body of work that my daughter will see. It’s a delight to know the permanence of it.
You are creating a piece of immortality in a way.”
Locke stars in the indie film “The Obituary of Tunde Johnson,” about a wealthy, black high school senior who becomes the victim of police brutality, set to come out this year or early 2020. She also just finished filming the Fox series “Proven Innocent.”
“The greatest gift our parents gave us, individually and collectively, was the sense of not hampering or questioning that creative spirit,” she said. “They believed in us. I also grew up in a family of Texas storytellers. That has always shaped my perspective in the world.”
Locke’s Texas roots have even played a major role in her style, though now she settles for a casual bo-ho look that’s definitely influenced by living in Los Angeles.
“In high school, I dressed like a newscaster, and it’s kind of embarrassing,” Locke said. “Now, my average look is jeans and low heels, a J. Crew or Banana Republic top, a pop of color and accessories. I bring it with accessories, so I will definitely be bejeweled down. You can’t take the Texas out of me completely.”