Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Yikes!, December 28, 2004
Although not the best writing style, the story does flow and this book turned out to be a page-turner. Before reading this book, I had no fondness for Anne Heche. I thought she was a perfectly adequate actress, but I believed her jumping from relationship to relationship (with whoever was the most famous or whoever had the most money) was a bit opportunistic, and maybe I still think that. However, her book explains her actions.
Anne believes that her father molested her - although she does not present any particular concrete memory to back this up. She told her mother that she had herpes on her face, and her mother admitted that when Anne was a baby, she had what was probably herpes on her vaginal area. Apparently her mother didn't catch them from husband, or if she did, she wasn't saying. What upset Anne so much was that her mother would never say she was sorry, or acknowledge that she was in any way responsible for not protecting Anne. What's weird (to me) is that obviously her father was a homosexual who had gay relationships with other adult males (he died of AIDS), but according to Anne's story, he was also a heterosexual pedophile - what's up with that?
Her father was a choir master who moved from church to church and her mother did not work (until much later). Her mother somehow managed to feed the family on the $5.00 a week her husband brought home. It's obvious that many of Anne's memories are not clear, but that's the way it is for many abuse survivors. Not only was Anne sexually abused, her father physically abused all the kids (her brother got blamed for stealing money - her father was the culprit), and the children were not allowed to ask questions and were punished for this. Her mother stood by him because that's what a good wife does, and above all, she was worried about getting into heaven. Although her mother told Anne that one of her little Jewish friends was a monster and going straight to hell, she later dated two married Jewish men herself.
Luckily Anne was discovered by a Proctor and Gamble talent scout while in high school, auditioned for a soap, and got the heck out of that mess. Her life afterwards actually went pretty smoothly - she seemed to get any acting job she wanted, got along well with others, and even had Steve Martin wanting to marry her. Anne was in therapy at a young age, but unfortunately, went a little haywire somewhere in her twenties. Due to her religious upbringing (all her mother cared about was Jesus' opinion, not her kids), and trying to deal with her dysfunctional family, Anne developed an alter ego, Celestia, who was the daughter of God, come to save mankind. Amazing things happened, albeit slightly otherwordly, and Anne filled two books with the writings (in another language) of Celestia. She also did drawings and poems. I wish that she had printed some excerpts of these. I think that along with those, some family pictures would have helped this book out tremendously.
What I'm not clear on, is the day she was going to get on the ship to go to heaven, she took Ecstasy, which she said that "they" instructed her to do. Was her fantasy afterward due to the drug, or would it have happened anyway? Because she certainly seemed to wise up pretty quickly once she was in the hospital.
Overall, I think Anne Heche has done a lot of work through the years on her emotional well-being, and seems to have it together at this point. She definitely has a couple of things straight: We are all children of God, and to love someone else, you must first love yourself. Thanks, Anne, for sharing your story.
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Took Guts to Write this Odd Memoir , April 5, 2006
Strangely unsatisfying tell-all. I distinctly felt that the book was more the writer's attempt to heal than a piece of literary work.
Heche shares much of her oddball therapy work, self-spun theories of her case, and dredged-up memories of abuse in her utterly messed-up childhood, but strangely enough reveals little of her SELF. I felt I was pushed into the psychiatrist's own chair, not allowed to be merely a reader or (in the best case of autobiography) a kind of temporary confidante and friend.
I gotta hand it to her, it took some guts to own up to some of this (psychotic episode under influence of Ecstasy, for one), and I am sorry for her suffering as a child. But perhaps SHE should have paid ME to read her unsavory chunk of insanity.
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55 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
THE REAL ANNE HECHE STEPS FORWARD!, September 5, 2001
While Anne may be a celebrity in her own right, with all the publicity, hype and controversary behind the relationship of Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres, the public has been exposed to most of the nitty-gritty details from the perspective of DeGeneres. Like many of life's revelations, there are usual three sides to every story: the first party's side, the second party's side, and the truth, which usually lies somewhere down the middle. Through the pages of this book, readers will not only read of Anne's relationship with DeGeneres, but will find an entire intriguing life story of a woman whose persona has not before been completely revealed. Readers get the facts straight from the source. Anne's life has been a complex one filled with trials and tribulations from start to present day. This book is not about "Anne the celebrity" but "Anne the person." For her, life has been filled with overwhelming obstacles, tragedy and heartache. Readers fascinated by the world of memoirs and autobiographies will find this is a book well worth reading. As for Anne herself, readers will have to draw their own conclusions, but as the title implies, "Call her Crazy", I would say, "no," call her human.
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