Anonymity [Hardcover]

Susan Bergman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1994

Interweaving childhood reminiscences with poignant meditations on the impact of grief and tragedy, a daughter details her father's 1983 death from AIDS and her family's struggle to cope with his death and his heretofore unrevealed homosexual life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How a mother and her daughters sustained the trauma of the 1983 death of 45-year-old Don Heche, husband and father, an early victim of AIDS, and how they coped with the discovery of his long-hidden homosexuality, is arrestingly told by poet and essayist Bergman, the eldest daughter, married and a mother of four. The prose narrative, often poetic in style, slips back and forth from childhood and family memories to young adulthood, eloquently reconstructing the father's duplicity and suffering and attempting to reconcile conflicting images of the devout family man, church music director, itinerant salesman and the gay lover denying his illness. As the mother turns to other men, and each daughter in her own way seeks to go on with her life, Bergman's comment, "Recover from the lie, and you must heal from the truth," presages the story's disturbing ending.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

When Don Heche died of AIDS in 1983 at the age of 45, he left behind a wife and three daughters. Struggling to make sense of her father's mysterious death (just three months after her brother died in an automobile accident), Susan becomes "a tourist of my father's secrets." Questioning family and investigating her father's former friends, she discovers that behind his identity as a church-going family man was a closeted homosexual. Childhood memories, her understanding the pain of his double life, and her own anger at his dishonesty are among the elements she weaves into this rewrite of her family history. While Bergman's overwritten prose occasionally threatens to undermine the power of this haunting narrative, it is still strongly recommended for all collections.
- James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 198 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st edition (February 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374254079
• ISBN-13: 978-0374254070
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #979,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent, November 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Anonymity (Hardcover)

Eloquent is the best word I can use to desribe Susan Heche Bergman's telling of her family story. Having read both Anne and Susan's stories about their family life, it is always interesting to see the different perspectives from siblings in the same family. I recommend listening to Anne's story first on CD as she adds profound emphasis to the telling and like so many good stories they are truly oral histories. I think it is nearly impossible for anyone to judge a family story other than those people who have lived the story. I thank them both for being brave enough to share their thoughts and perspectives on what happened while they were growing up. Clearly we are priviledged to be listening to what would normally only be divulged in a therapist office. We all need to hear more of these stories in order that we may come to understand that it is society's closed doors that keep people locked inside closets they don't know how to open; unfortunatley, for the Heche children, with devastating consequences. I have rarely read more finely written closing chapters than those where Susan descibes her longing to be throughly known pehaps "only as God could observe." My final thoughts upon finishing both books is that these sisters are closer than they know.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Changed my life, March 2, 2005

By 

Toomuchnoise - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anonymity (Hardcover)

This books is eloquent, honest and infatuating. It is also a rare devout Christian voice that doesn't sound like James Dobson... and is well worth reading for those reasons.

And it's a very powerful morality play.

"Anonymity" is on a very short list of books that changed my life. The basic premise of the book -- that secret morality is a self-deception-- was exactly what I needed as I was developing my personal values.

I often think about "Anonymity" as I consider making a moral decision; my decision will probably become public at some point.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anne Heche's sister tells the story...., September 6, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Anonymity (Hardcover)

I read this book years ago before anyone had heard of Anne Heche, former "wife" of Ellen Degeneres and author of a new book, Call Me Crazy. In this book--Anonymity--Anne's siter Susan tells a tragic story of a gay man who was ashamed of being gay and a wife who is the epitome of denial. Everyone in the family suffers (read about the son!) in their own way. The only one who seemed to escape it at all was Anne, the pretty, blond sister who had gone to New York to become an actress. Yet today Anne "recollects" horror stories about her family which do not jive at all with this honest, poetic book by Susan. Read this book for a story of true family dysfunction in the 20th century. It is quite a book! Very well written and honest. (I am hoping it comes back in print with the recent publicity Anne's book is receiving.)