This section offers a humorous introduction of the author, Lauren Graham, and lists her reasons for writing this book. After a few jokes about the roles that she has played over the years, Graham puts the jokes aside and continues to explain how much the character of Lorelai, which she played in the television series Gilmore Girls, really means to her.

The first chapter of Talking as Fast as I Can recounts the earliest years of Graham’s life. She was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, then moved to Tokyo with her parents, where they lived with her grandmother. Not long after that, Graham’s parents got divorced. Because Graham’s mom was “trying to pursue a career as a singer, […] it was decided [that Graham] should stay with [her] dad” (9). They moved to a houseboat on the Virgin Islands for a few years before moving to Southampton, New York, when Graham was five years old.

Graham recalls that in kindergarten, she received what she always called her “extra year” (15). Soon after she started school, her teachers realized that she could already read, so she skipped ahead to the first grade. Graham recalls that she “got the idea that life was just a massive competition to get to some sort of finish line, like one long extended season of The Amazing Race.