Surviving My Birthright

by Casey Hammer

This is a revealing and inspirational memoir by Casey Hammer, sole granddaughter of the American billionaire, industrialist, art collector and philanthropist Armand Hammer.

SURVIVING MY BIRTHRIGHT is a story of hope, love, and the reclamation of empowerment. Casey's is a journey of discovery - recounting many years of blocked memories, violence, nightmares, hazardous behavior, guilt and feeling unworthy of joy or happiness.

By taking responsibility for her life, no longer being prepared to accept the role of victim and by facing the truth, Casey began to heal.

Hopefully, her story will inspire many others to do the same.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Abuse, Audiobook

331 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2015

Reviews

[Hester · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know why I read this....

For years Hollywood was trying to make some asshole actor with a stupid name happen. He bragged about his wealthy family and how he doesn't take their money, yeah right. I never heard of his asshole family until he shared the story about how he got his stupid name. He would say stupid things to make you think he was socially aware, he let his son suck on his toes and then... well you know the rest. As the allegations got darker I wanted to know what made him like this, how could this seemingly boring asshole be this not right in the head. Then I heard about his aunt Casey's book and bingo! It all made sense.

This is a heartbreaking account of the painful longing of a child/woman who so desperately wanted to feel loved, protected and accepted by the people who should have done so. Instead she's surrounded by cruel, abusive, emotionally distant, greedy hateful crazy twats.

No, I don't want the gory details of her abuse, but what I wanted were more stories of the chaos that made up her childhood. Like the story about her father's crazy ex girlfriend who tore his house up, and tried to kill Casey while wearing a bed sheet like some kind of halloween ghost and the time her brother and father got into a very public fight over her brother's girlfriend.

Her time line is a jumbled mess, which made it confusing for an idiot like myself. I felt uncomfortable anytime she brought up not getting her share of the Hammer family money after the deaths of her grandfather and father. It reminded me about how people said that Mommie Dearest was Christina Crawford's bitter revenge fantasy after finding out she was cut from Joan's will. For me, that's the biggest problem with this book, she mentions it several times, how many people will read this and think she's a liar and only wrote this book for the money and that embarrassing her family is just an added bonus.

I honestly do believe her, but we live in a society full of garbage people who either blame the victim, call them a liar or just all together dismiss them and the thought of people doing that to Casey or anyone else who comes out as a survivor of abuse makes me angry. You'll want to cry for Casey and all that she's been through, those of us who have a heart will.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warning: This book contains deeply disturbing material. The Hammer family is the epitome of generational dysfunction.

[amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

very upsetting I hope she finds peace

[N Stephanie Spika · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written- interesting content

This was one of the most poorly written books I’ve ever read. The content was interesting so I read (skimmed) it all. But there are so many grammatical errors, typos, and just plain crappy writing that it’s tough to enjoy.

[Tama Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world needs to know the truth!
Casey Hammer deserves justice and her family to be held publicly accountable for ever one of their sick and countless crimes. They can't hide this anymore

[Kara MacDowell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was not a good book. Not even sure what made me want to read it. This author's memoir jumped around in time, place, and subject a lot. It was hard to follow. She repeated stories too! There were also a lot of superfluous words and descriptions of events or ideas that neither moved the story along or spoke to any characters.

Hammer also spent a lot of time whining about all the money she felt entitled to but didn't get, and then in the next breath, she'd say that she never wanted the money. I'm not glad I read this book. I am glad it's over.

[tatiana]

I don’t want to rate someone’s memories, but this isn’t great. Not because of the story - it’s truly awful, be forewarned there are a lot of triggering topics, but the whole book is just kind of a mess with the timelines. She jumps around so much, it’s hard to keep up.

I wanted to read this after I watched the documentary, but you’re better off just watching the doc, she explains things better and they edit in a way that makes sense.

Overall, just such a sad story about her life. Also, I just felt super odd because it came off that she so desperately wanted her grandfather’s attention just so he’d remember her in the will. The niceties she did for them on their death beds just fell flat for me. It felt forced, but who am I to judge, she’s had a really rough life.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievable and heartbreaking

A harrowing read from the only granddaughter of Armand Hammer, and aunt to recently disgraced actor Armie Hammer. To go through as much as she did and come out of it with this tale to tell is a credit to her strength and courage.

[Rachel]

I'm not really sure what to rate this book as. It's not a five story read but it's not a one story read either. This is a chilling and at times discombobulated autobiography of a woman related to a man who is currently in the center of his own sex scandal. Someone on twitter had mentioned this book to give more background as to why a Hollywood actor would have the sexual proclivities that he does; so I had to see for myself how bad things were and man were they bad.

This was a book that showed the damaging affects repeated abuse can have on a child's development and lead them to developing codependent relationships with people who will further take advantage of them, harm them, because they believe dysfunction is normal. It also paints a picture about white privilege when it comes to mental illness, committing all-out fraud and other crimes, and addiction, which surprises no one. And also how survivors are victim blamed and shunned within their own families. I really, really, *really* want to lay some hands on her brother, mother, sister and in that order. Just despicable.

The only criticism I can give is that I wish this had been told in chronological order. Casey jumped around during her recollections, giving a vague timeline of when things happened at which stage of her life. There were some editing mistakes but they weren't as jarring as the content of the story. It is triggering so be warned.

[Misty Shaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

So after watching a documentary about this family I was interested. Ordered this book off of Amazon because no libraries carried it. Before I start my review I do want to say I do believe Casey and am very sympathetic to her.
Now with that being said. The timeline is a hot mess and very confusing at times. As much as she says she doesn’t care about the money, as many times as she mentioned I’m pretty sure she did care about the money. I feel for her growing up in that dysfunctional mess. But, this book was messy, jumbled and hard to read at times.

[Minken]

What a shit show of a family... I’m so happy she survived to tell the tale and spread awareness and love.

[Amar Pai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad. I felt bad for the author. Parents are so important

[Lora Rives · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boo friggin hoo

[Sarah Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir details the author's experiences growing up as the only granddaughter of American billionaire Armand Hammer. While from the outside, anyone might expect that she grew up in luxury and excess, in reality, Casey grew up in an abusive situation, feeling unloved and forgotten, and her whole adult life has been marred and overshadowed by her dysfunctional childhood and unhappy family.

There are parts of this story that are very hard to read. Casey experienced and witnessed absolutely horrible abuse and violence. Her whole life, she seems desperate to earn the affection and attention of her parents and grandfather, with little success. The depictions of drugs, physical violence or threats of it, brandishing of guns, rape, and more were wild. Yet in the public eye, the family presented itself as a philanthropist with a loving and stable family.

Like many others, I found this book because Casey was interviewed in the House of Hammer documentary as Armie Hammer's aunt, and I was curious to learn more. The book (as you might guess from the cover art) is chaotic at best. It is not in any sort of chronological order. Nor does the author provide any sort of context or history on her family but assumes everyone will know the Hammer name. The opening chapters were particularly bizarre, where she relays childhood memories where she perhaps hallucinates, perhaps dreams during an episode of physical abuse of her mother to her father. It was difficult to follow. She is undoubtedly a victim. But she also takes no responsibility for anything at any point. She seems deeply troubled due to what she experienced growing up, which is understandable, but does not make for a super coherent read.

[Mikayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy story and difficult to accept it was real. I feel bad for Casey. I appreciate her vivid storytelling and her honesty with her own shortcomings. Some parts were a little repetitive. One of the later chapters was almost verbatim from an earlier one. It was confusing. But overall it was a good read.

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Content was good, but production & execution left more to be desired.

[Jenna · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst POS i’ve ever read. I have no doubt this woman has a traumatic past and went through some pretty horrible things, but this book is pretty much whining about not getting her family money in which she thought she deserved, and her not receiving the love from her grandfather and father. She was constantly telling horrible stories about them…but then whine about them not loving her. What a jumble of stories, the timeline was all over the place. This book was soley written by the author for one reason, to get people to feel sorry for her. Literally the whole book is of her whining and telling stories of every one around her doing this awful, terrible things…but that she was so innocent and never did anything wrong. She plays the victim in every single story that was written in this book. I’m nothing more than annoyed for making myself finish this book. What a waste of time.

[Angela Pirotta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting ... I couldn’t stop listening to this as an audio book. Tho I wish she had of read it herself ...
I went from feeling this story can’t possibly be true, the poor girl 😞 to rally all this and u still seen your father and stayed near and lived with him and family after all the abuse why not leave ? All just not to be dis inherited ? But it sounds one moment she has no money issues but the next she says she is in so much debt . Good story but missses parts jumping back and forth? Got me hooked and I had to find out who dies when and if she ever got money ?! What a horrible brother , but also believe Casey needed to leave sooner and forget about money and impressing people , thank god this is not my world where money is everything .. I doubt this changed though she said it did ? Interesting to know?! 3.5 stars

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decently written but needed a better editor to make it more cohesive, less redundant, and give it a more explosive flow.

It is a story of the tremendous abuse she suffered from her family of origin. The story feels written in the middle of her healing journey. I sense that writing this was part of her healing, letting go some of that pain so she no longer needed to carry the weight of it. I sense it was about finding her voice and owning her essence, taking back her power.

Her story is a testament to what the healing journey looks like along the way. For that, I thank her for sharing. She is a brave and courageous woman who possesses strength in spades.

[LDavis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Casey Hammer is the only Hammer who should be proud.

You never know what happens behind closed doors, and this poignant book should make us open our eyes. Be a friend to all.

[Dionne · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I sacrificed so much of me for my father."
"The men I've chosen in the past reflect back to me how I used to see myself but I'm changing that perception."

I didn't even know who Armand Hammer was until I watched the documentary House of Hammer. I couldn't believe the perversity that was passed down by the men in that family.

One of the journalists that was on the documentary mentioned discovering Casey's book. Casey herself was on the documentary and I was astounded by what she had been through.

Casey's story is incredibly important and I'm glad she was brave enough to share it. A lot of people weren't happy about her exposing the sins of the Hammer family, especially her brother Michael.

Yet, as Anne Lamott says, “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

The story was meaningful to me because I was able to relate to some of the trauma that she experienced. Yet, I did struggle with how her story was told in a somewhat scattered manner and stories were repeated. I also wish the author had read the book. The lady that read the book sounded young and somewhat flippant.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Casey Hammer, granddaughter to Armond Hammer, details the abuses she suffered in early childhood and how she healed from them. I was frustrated with how often this story came back to Hammer complaining about money she had been promised (or had assumed would be coming) which did not come to her. I can understand the pain of the abuse and the emotional betrayals of being promised something that didn't occur, particularly when you'd already bragged to all your friends about it coming or purchased expensive clothes to appear as if you already had it or what have you. But at the end of the day, when you've been financially supported by your family money for years and you *only* get a million dollars for your inheritance instead of the multiple millions you were promised, maybe it's okay to set boundaries with the people who reneged on the promise, take your one million, and live happily apart from the family drama. --I don't want to downplay how much more difficult that can be to do than to say, but...

CW: child abuse (physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, neglect), rape of minor, incest

[Amanda Alexandre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book after the infamous Armie Hammer controversy sparked a morbid curiosity over whatever the hell happens in that family. The Hammers are the sterotypical overbearing and abusive rich family, the kind of Dom Perignon trash so common between rich traditional families.

The answer is disturbing. Casey was sexually harrassed by her brother AND her father. Her brother made her perform oral sex in him while she was small, she had to stand on a bench to reach his penis while doing him a fellatio. The book itself is a non-chronological collection of memories of her family and relationships.

Sometimes, I'd wish it was more edited down. But I think the author did this as a therapeutical exercise for her, and this is why the book circles back to her feelings again, again and again. It is a very fast read though, something you can read in a sit, even if that wasn't the case for me: the book was just too grim for my recent mood.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked-she was brave enough to share her story despite the powerful family she will enrage. She shows us over and over again how money does not equal happiness. She describes many family moments and how these Uber wealthy people lived.

What I didn’t like-the very overdone prose in the beginning. The skipping around timeline and references-some which were not explained until 100 pages later. She doesn’t really take accountability for herself-she blamed a husband for getting her into Coke but then 150 pages later writes how she was a Cone addict in college. She blamed her sister for betraying her with her brother but never mentioned how her sister might have felt betrayed by her with her father. The final section she says what a great writer she is at least a dozen times.

[Auntie Aim · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book. The author has clearly been through some things. As an audio book it is a brisk read because the narrator goes at top speed. She also struggles with pronunciation several times. The one that pops to mind is saying executor as if someone was being killed instead of someone overseeing an estate. The story itself is repetitive and contradictory. It is written as extremes - it was the best or worst thing ever. It is written as if by a middle schooler. And though again, clearly the author has lived through some traumas, she often comes across as entitled and tone deaf. Example- talking about how broke she has always been then about purchasing her first thoroughbred horse. Salacious stuff but writing makes it tough to get much out of.

[criavolver · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a tragic story, I listened to it, and it was narrated by Casey herself. I hope her story and the countless others out help in creating a path to justice. Repeatedly throughout her story she highlights how the police where often involved in her family’s affairs since they were called to the house. Yet, because of their name and power, always just got a warning. How abuse was known to have happened but nothing was ever done.

It highlights how we need to stop giving power to people who are just going to rape, murder and in the grandson’s case: eat us. There people are part of the many disgusting characters of high society.

[Wendy Winter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oy vey. Was intrigued to read after watching a bit on TV about Armie. While what she endured was horrific, she needed an editor- big time. Other reviewers weren’t kidding when they said “repetitive”. Plus for no reason, she jumped back and forth in time. One page she’s mourning something and the next page she’s back in time.

And while I understand what she endured was traumatizing, the way the book was written, I began to lack empathy because she simply came off as a “poor little rich girl”, enthralled with her family’s name. The number of times she stated, “because I’m a Hammer” & “Hammers do x” or “Hammers don’t do X…” aided in my loss of empathy.

[April · Rating 2 out of 5]

FYI - this is more about her trauma and self-reflections than a chronological, behind-the-scenes biography of her family that I was expecting. I read this after watching the documentary.... I empathize with her experiences, but I had a misinformed notion of what this book was. It wasn't as informative as I had expected and is more about her feelings around the experiences she had. For example, how it made her feel when her father forgot about her often. A lot of children of divorce experience this aspect. I'm not trying to downplay her experiences, but only read this if you're looking for a memoir of childhood trauma and self-reflection.