Tom Hanks was “not surprised” that daughter E.A. Hanks was able to write her compelling memoir delving into her own childhood abuse and her mother’s troubled life.

The 68-year-old actor opened up about the pride he feels for his only daughter on the release of The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, her book about Hanks’ first wife, Susan Dillingham, who E.A. says was emotionally and physically abusive during her childhood.

“I’m not surprised that my daughter had the wherewithal as well as the curiosity to examine this thing that I think she was incredibly honest about,” Hanks told Access Hollywood at the premiere of his new film, The Phoenician Scheme. “We all come from checkered, cracked lives, all of us.”

“She’s a knockout, always has been,” he continued. “If you’ve had kids, you realize that you see who they are when they’re about 6 weeks old.”

Hanks was married to Dillingham from 1978 until 1987 and shares son Colin, 47, and daughter Elizabeth Anne, 43. Dillingham died in 2002.

In her book, E.A. recalled moving with her mom after she got primary custody of her and Colin following her divorce from Hanks. “As the years went on, the backyard became so full of dog s— that you couldn’t walk around it, the house stank of smoke. The fridge was bare or full of expired food more often than not, and my mother spent more and more time in her big four-poster bed, poring over the Bible.”

“One night, her emotional violence became physical violence, and in the aftermath I moved to Los Angeles, right smack in the middle of the seventh grade,” she continued.

After telling her father about what was going on at home, the Forrest Gump actor got custody of his older kids and moved them in with his now-wife Rita Wilson and their sons, Chet, now 34, and Truman, now 29.

Though Dillingham was never diagnosed, E.A. writes that she now believes her mother had bipolar and was prone to episodes of extreme paranoia and delusion. The book chronicles E.A.’s journey back to where her mother grew up after unearthing Dillingham’s journal that was filled with dark entries about her past.

E.A. previously opened up about her famous dad’s reaction to Vanity Fair. “From the outset, he has supported The 10,” E.A. said in an April 8 profile. “Whether it was swapping cars with me, helping me pick out camping gear, or being the first reader.”

“The conversation we had once he had read a very early draft was exactly what I needed to hear, which was that I had depicted my mother accurately,” she said. “This is what it was like to both love and fear her.”

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