A moving, compelling memoir about growing up and escaping
the tragic legacy of mental illness, suicide, addiction, and
depression in one of America’s most famous families: the
Hemingways.
She opens her eyes. The room is dark.
She hears yelling, smashed plates, and wishes it was all a
terrible dream. But it isn’t. This is what it was like
growing up as a Hemingway. In this deeply moving, searingly
honest new memoir, actress and mental health icon Mariel
Hemingway shares in candid detail the story of her troubled
childhood in a famous family haunted by depression,
alcoholism, illness, and suicide. Born just a few months
after her grandfather, Ernest Hemingway, shot himself, it
was Mariel’s mission as a girl to escape the desperate
cycles of severe mental health issues that had plagued
generations of her family. Surrounded by a family tortured
by alcoholism (both parents), depression (her sister
Margaux), suicide (her grandfather and four other members of
her family), schizophrenia (her sister Muffet), and cancer
(mother), it was all the young Mariel could do to keep her
head. In a compassionate voice she reveals her painful
struggle to stay sane as the youngest child in her family,
and how she coped with the chaos by becoming OCD and
obsessive about her food, schedule, and organization. The
twisted legacy of her family has never quite let go of
Mariel, but now in this memoir she opens up about her
claustrophobic marriage, her acting career, and turning to
spiritual healers and charlatans for solace. Ultimately
Mariel has written a story of triumph about learning to
overcome her family’s demons and developing love and deep
compassion for them. At last, in this memoir she can finally
tell the true story of the tragedies and troubles of the
Hemingway family, and she delivers a book that beckons
comparisons with Mary Karr and Jeanette Walls.
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