If this materializes, it promises to be harrowing. “We’re Going to Need More Wine” contains Ms. Union’s own heart-wrenching, deeply personal stories: about her infertility struggles, her childhood during which she lived in the all-white Pleasanton, Calif., for the school year and spent summers with her grandmother and cousins in a predominantly black neighborhood in North Omaha. About her first marriage, to the N.F.L. player Chris Howard, and subsequent divorce; her relationship with her father; and about the time she was raped at gunpoint when she was 19. Her assailant was caught, and he took a plea deal of 33 years in jail. She doesn’t know if he’s still there. She doesn’t want to know.

The book was the natural outgrowth, Ms. Union said, of years of therapy.

“There’s a valve at the bottom of my canister where I can let things out in a healthy productive way,” Ms. Union said over lunch at Maialino, an Italian restaurant. “Like Skype sessions with my therapist, with friends, silence, sitting out in nature, time with the kids, with my dogs. Watching ‘This Is Us’ — that has been quite therapeutic.”

Her house in Cleveland is so quiet that a buck often hops into her backyard. She likes having a cup of coffee when no one is around, and stares at that deer.

But such solitude isn’t always easy to find. Mr. Wade has sole custody of two sons (Zaire, 15, and Zion, 10) from his first marriage, to Siohvaughn Funches, as well as custody of his nephew (Dahveon, 16). Ms. Union said she will sometimes claim “gastrointestinal issues” in the bathroom just to get a few minutes alone.

“I fake diarrhea a lot,” she said, laughing.

She has been talking about “me too” for many years — even writing about it in her book — long before it became #MeToo. On Oct. 17, the day the book was released, about two weeks after the Harvey Weinstein story broke, Ms. Union told Robin Roberts during a segment on “Good Morning America” that she has been repeating her sexual assault story “with the goal of never having to hear ‘me too’ again.”

When she first saw #MeToo trending, her arm went numb, she told Ms. Roberts. “Post-traumatic stress syndrome from the rape,” Ms. Union said on the air, visibly shaken, her mouth quivering.