Art Chudabala, a veteran actor and filmmaker known for his work on both sides of the camera, has announced the release of his debut memoir, Back to One: Divorce, Despair and the Fine Art of Crying Into Orange Chicken. The book is a raw, unvarnished, and often darkly funny account of a man forced to tear down everything he thought he knew about himself after the collapse of a twelve-year marriage.
The title draws from the film industry term used when a scene fails and the cast must return to their starting marks. For Chudabala, that reset wasn't cinematic — it started in a quiet kitchen over spilled coffee and got considerably worse from there. The memoir explores the unsexy side of heartbreak: the bare apartment, the unfamiliar silence, the particular pain of becoming a part-time father to his twin daughters.
Back to One doesn't traffic in easy answers or alpha-male posturing. Chudabala is candid about his early descent into digital rabbit holes and online gurus before arriving at harder, slower work confronting the nice-guy patterns and inherited silences that had been running the show long before the marriage ended.
"This book is for the man sitting on his floor, wondering how he got there," says Chudabala. "It's about the moment you stop performing and start looking at the truth of who you are when the cameras aren't rolling."
The memoir follows his path through sobriety and the hard, honest work of becoming someone he actually recognizes. It doesn't end with a breakthrough so much as a beginning: a man choosing presence over performance, documented with the same honesty he wishes someone had handed him when everything fell apart. He also details the evolution of a co-parenting relationship built on mutual respect — and the quieter realization that a family can remain whole even when it takes a different shape.
From the wreckage of a life he thought he'd built right to the slow, unglamorous work of rebuilding from the inside out, Back to One is an invitation for anyone who has ever felt like an extra in their own life and is ready to step back onto their mark.
About the Author
Art Chudabala is a Los Angeles-based actor and filmmaker with over two decades in film and television. He wrote Back to One the same way he tells stories — specific, unfiltered, and willing to find the dark comedy in the wreckage. It's his debut memoir and, he'll be the first to admit, not the book he planned to write.
Media Contact
Company Name: Art Chudabala
Contact Person: The Authors Point
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: https://artchudabala.com/
