Call Me Crazy: A Memoir

by Anne Heche

THE NATIONAL AND "NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLERAs an actress, she lives in the world of illusion made to seem real. As a survivor of abuse, she's learned how to live in her own skin -- and face the reality of a broken past on her own terms.

Filled with unsparing candor and honesty, "Call Me Crazy" captures with poignancy and surprising humor Anne Heche's struggle to quiet her demons, both real and imagined. This galvanizing memoir reveals the woman behind the headlines, one who has conquered overwhelming odds and come to terms with her painful upbringing. Empowering and thought-provoking, warmhearted and wise, "Call Me Crazy" offers a crystalline snapshot of the heart and soul of a woman who has traveled a terrifying inner landscape in search of personal fulfillment -- and who has emerged happy, whole, and strong.

Genres: Memoir, Biography, Nonfiction, Autobiography, Psychology, Biography Memoir, Celebrity

251 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Anne Celeste Heche was an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She started her career at age 18 on the daytime soap opera Another World, for which she received a Daytime Emmy Award in 1991. Heche gradually obtained supporting roles in feature films such as I Know What You Did Last Summer and Volcano (both 1997). Her first leading role was in Six Days Seven Nights (1998)—which has remained her most high-profile film role to date. That same year, she starred in the critically acclaimed film Return to Paradise, which was her second (and last) leading role in a theatrical film to date. Following a supporting role in John Q. (2002), she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the TV movie Gracie's Choice (2004). From 2006 to 2008, she starred in her own TV series, Men in Trees. Her most recent film credits include Spread (2009), The Other Guys (2010), and Cedar Rapids (2011). She had a supporting role in the 2009–2011 HBO cable TV series Hung.

As Heche was beginning to establish herself in films during the late 1990s, her career was negatively affected by her highly publicized same-sex relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, and resulted in Heche losing film offers. In 2001, following her break-up with DeGeneres, Heche married cameraman Coley Laffoon, with whom she has a son. Since their separation in 2007 (they divorced in 2009), she has lived with actor James Tupper, with whom she also has a son.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a sucker for memoirs by actresses with troubled pasts. This book did not disappoint. It is written like a novel and is very addictive. Her life is stranger than fiction- a dad who lived a double life as a super Christian with his family and as a gay man in NYC who eventually died of AIDs, a brother who killed himself, relationships with Lindsey Buckingham, Steve Martin, AND ELLEN, and also her infamous mental breakdown when she wandered into a stranger's house and asked to take a shower before her trip on a spaceship to Heaven. She writes with a sense of humor while also speaking out about her childhood of physical and sexual abuse.

[Blow Pop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Content warnings: abuse, childhood abuse, molestation, rape, childhood sexual assault, using religion to perpetuate abuse

This book is completely NOT what I was expecting. I was initially interested and drawn into this book by the blurb on the back which is part of the book. Because it looked interesting. I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into.

Even though I was triggered by the mentions of the abuse especially in context of relationships it wasn't bad enough that I had to stop reading it. On the contrary it drove me more into the book. It was slow reading (I mean it took me 4 hours to read 200 pages so really slow reading for me) but it was good reading.

Hard topics to read about. But presented really well. Unlike some other memoirs I've read it's not preachy. Especially about the therapy. She explicitly states "this is what works/ed for me and won't work for everyone" and I REALLY like that. Because she's acknowledging that not all therapy is the same and will automatically work for everyone. It's a relief to see that in a published book.

It was a good read (and a short one) and I'd recommend it to others as long as they're in a good mental state to read it.

[Pam Sweigert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well before I read this memoir I basically thought wow that woman in looney tunes! After reading about all that she endured throughout her first three decades, I think it's amazing she didn't suffer a mental break sooner! This in an interesting look into what childhood abuse can do to you throughout your life, into your adult years, your relationships, your career choices and most importantly your self worth. Anne is excruciatingly honest about her experiences, her therapy choices (including a controversial LSD therapy), her relationship with her other siblings and with her mother, who, in my opinion, NEVER should have been a mother. She is forthright about her breakdown, what was happening during it and draws smart connections as to why she was willing to believe that God was speaking to her and that she was the second coming. I also found that this book did not fall into the same trap you see with a lot of memoirs of famous people where publishing companies somehow believe that because someone is famous, the can write. This is certainly not the case. However, Anne has written several plays and movies, taught how by Steve Martin no less, and had a competent editor (and possibly a co/ghost writer). The flow is easy, sprinkled sometimes by future happenings, but not to the point that it is distracting and mostly is kept in chronological order that builds up to her breakdown. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys autobiographies and anyone who has survived sexual or physical abuse and managed to come out the other side.

[Ashlei A.K.A Chyna Doll · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book kinda got to me...

I was a little sick her repeating herself with "an abused child" this "abused child" that. And abused child does this or that, says this or acts like that...
I could not get past that..
But the story was a good memoir on her life... She is a funny, "Crazy", insightful woman who has struggled, and survived so much I have to give her some credit...
But I was a little unhappy with how short it was (240+ pages) and only like 6 pages to talk about her mental breakdown....
I was happy with it other then that.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have no idea who in our in person book club liked and then recommended this. It is really really bad.

[Nyree · Rating 2 out of 5]

started out interesting then seemed like she just wanted to finish writing the darn thing. made it feel rushed and not quite developed as she moved from each story etc and so forth, the flow just wasn't there for the 2nd half.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

One star for writing/reality, five stars for camp value, so there you go: three.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this book I can see reasons why Anne may be a little crazy. I really do like her. To me Anne is a super strong person who I have to applaud for even writing this book. It was a crazy *life that she had.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know why i am even admitting that i read this book... it wasn't very good at all!

[Esse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has been abused can really relate and gain from this book. Its inspiring to know that there is light at the end of a dark tunnel. Anne tells the story in a way that is not to disturbing but still has you understand what she went through.
I like how she talks about what really happens in life. No sugar, no cream just the hard facts of life that is often to dark to want to understand. Thanks for keeping it real Anne.

[Lisa Gallagher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting story, not least of which for the salacious celebrity value of it. Anne Heche had been in a very public same-sex relationship and then had a notorious meltdown as the relationship came to an end in which she wound up at a stranger's home in Fresno, California, half-naked, high and asking to take a shower before her spaceship took her to a higher dimension. Nobody, then, knew the years of sexual abuse and shame that she had endured as a child. Heche lays it out very clearly in her memoir. Her fundamentalist Christian parents who had little understanding of the world around them, her closeted gay father who molested her, her career first in soaps and then in film, meeting the relationships of her adult life: Lindsey Buckingham, Steve Martin and Ellen. There are some things that come across very clearly; that Heche was desperate for love after a lifetime of shame and abuse from those who brought her into this world and that she (perhaps unwittingly) became an opportunist in her pursuit for love and acceptance. What isn't so clear and needed much more elaboration, is the "Crazy" portion. One day Anne, prepping for a film role in New York, hears a voice. The voice tells her to go into a particular store, where she buys a specific leather-bound journal and suddenly retreats to her hotel where she fills the journal with a new language. She heals people, she believes that she is a divine being with the name Celestia. she's going to save the world.

She lives a public life as an actress, in a very publicized relationship while also living a secret life as Celestia until, as her relationship is winding down, she has this unbelievable meltdown. And then, in the hospital immediately following the Fresno incident, she is told there is no spaceship and that she is not Celestia and she suddenly is cured.

There needed to be several chapters at the end of the book to explain what had just happened. It makes sense how she went crazy. It even makes sense how she became sane. It doesn't make any sense at all how she would have reconciled that, and that would have been the most fascinating part of her story had she chosen to share it. Instead, we are left with the platitude that she fell in love with a man and love healed her. The same man that she would leave, a few years later, for a costar.

Celebrity memoirs are a dime a dozen. Most celebrities do have some semblance of an interesting life and Anne Heche is no exception. This was a fascinating story, but I felt like it failed to deliver a proper ending. Clearly Celestia was not a divine being and therefore, Anne had to have been crazy. Clearly her background was prime breeding ground for mental health problems.

But was she really healed of her crazy or is she just a good actress?

[Sarah Kester · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book at the library and read it on an impulse, not having much of an opinion on Anne Heche either way. The only thing I knew about her was she dated Steve Martin and Ellen Degeneres, went crazy and thought she was someone named Celestia and everybody pretty much hates her.

The book deals mostly with her relationship with her father who she claims molested her and who ended up dying of AIDS. It's not very well-written and you're left with the feeling that Anne still has quite a few things to work through and it's curious why she would publish a book at this point.

I don't doubt that her father molested her and she has mental problems as a result, but there's no resolution to her problems. It's not a story of triumph. I guess it's good that she was able to survive everything, but I guess it seems that a crazy person who's still crazy writing a book about being crazy serves no purpose.

[Cathyannebaron Baron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am and was, before her meltdown, a fan of Anne Heche. Reading about the horrific things she went through as a child, it doesn't surprise me she went crazy. In her memoir, she revisits her entire life story and describes exactly what happened leading up to her incident in Fresno that everyone heard about on the news.... I read this book in 4 hours...couldn't put it down...

[Alice Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting. So many issues raised in this book.

[Vanessa Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

She is not the greatest writer and she has that frustrating tendency (that many of these types of books do) to dwell on the feelings around some events and simply recount others with no explanation, when those latter events are rather pivotal. But her journey of realizing how she had become who she was was compelling.

[Anita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yes, she is.

[Lola · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rarely read about actors/famous people but "Call Me Crazy" looked interesting.
The story is about Heche's childhood of abuse by her father, which was ignored
by her mother. In her adult life she continued to suffer from the effects of that childhood. At one point she was seriously crazy. She had a relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, as most people know, but that also did not last due to
the demons she had living in her head, as well as the public's refusal to accept gay relationships & DeGeneres' depression after her TV show was cancelled as a result of her "coming out". Today Heche says she's in a good relationship with a man named Coleman.

[Julene · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never want to be the kind of person that reads someone else's memoir and judges them based upon it. Anne did a fantastic job of telling her story in a way that was heartfelt; serious but still cracking jokes about the abuse she experienced growing up. This read more like a lengthy letter to long-lost friend than a book, and the disconnect between her talking about her childhood and her attempts to cope with those experiences once she reached adulthood didn't jive as well for me as say, Linda Lovelace's memoir.

I'd say it wasn't to my taste but it was still a good book.

[Marcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read. I was a little young to be terribly into celebrity culture when this book came out, and when these events were going on in her life, but I actually do remember a few of these things being in the news. It was interesting to revisit some of it with a more mature eye and better understanding of the significance of events.

Bits I liked:

Sometimes life is so hard and we judge people rather than realizing that it's an accomplishment to simply get up in the morning. So … thumbs up! You're awake.

[Helen Akers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself thinking, "change a few details and circumstances" and Anne's early history is mine. I also found myself resonating with her insights about how abuse impacts someone, how they perceive relationships, the search for love, and how they use different shields. "Work is my shield" especially hit home. Also, the pieces about how living the human existence is hard and being here is a struggle without love/self-love. Thank you for sharing your story, candor, and wisdom, Anne. Rest in peace and fly free.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the most surprising good read that I have found in a while. I just picked it up yesterday from the book trade shelf at work and tore through the first half. It's such a fascinating look into the life of an abused child looking back from an adult perspective. It slowed down a bit for me in the second half.

[Amkd69 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I nearly gave up on this after a few chapters I am glad I didn't. I thought it would be another misery memoir but it's not.She is surprisingly honest & frank especially about her breakdown & her relationship with Ellen De Generes which I thought she might gloss over.

[Liz Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird, weird, weird, but insightful as heck. Sometimes what she wrote could have come from a professional therapist and sometimes it just seems like the musings of someone just talking to get their thoughts out. It was definitely something I enjoyed but it was out there.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

wild story.
if you've read Valis by PKD you need to read this.

[Kayelea Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got halfway through and couldn't finish. I didn't like the writing style and nothing she said made sense. Felt like I wasted my time.

[Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Her story is intriguing and interesting, her writing is not so good.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars is probably a little generous--as one reviewer here notes, the book runs out of steam in the second half. I wouldn't say it was a well-written memoir, but I appreciate the effort. I am glad to get to know Anne Heche a little better through her writing.

I felt rather sad when Anne Heche died a few weeks ago, in part because I had lost track of her over the years. I first saw her as Vicky Hudson and Marley Love, her twin tour-de-force on the late, lamented Another World. Say what you will about soap operas and soap acting, there was a lot of good back in the day with the cast of Another World being a stand-out in the late '80s and early '90s. A real New York show with a strong theater-trained cast. Anne Heche in particular was one of the best reasons to watch during her four-year residence.

I regretted seeing her leave the show, but I was pleased that she succeeded, first in a supporting role in the early '90s Hallmark Hall of Fame movie version of Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, then in a slew of supporting roles in major motion pictures (Donnie Brasco, Volcano, Wag the Dog, et al.), and finally in the romcom Seven Days, Six Nights, with Harrison Ford. But to be honest, I'm not much of a Hollywood movie fan, so while her steady success was impressive and well-deserved, those weren't the kind of movies I wanted to see her act in.

Then blam! She was all over the tabloids, at first due to her boom-and-bust relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, then because of her mental health struggles and revelations of sexual abuse at the hands of her father.

And then I stopped paying attention.

I stopped paying attention in part because life got in the way. (How many times did I move in the 20 years since this book was written? I am only sure in the knowledge that there were 4 states and 1 province involved.) But I also tuned out because I couldn't figure her out. She had been all-in on the relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, then she was being ridiculed as "Celestia," then she was married with children, then she was on TV again, then Dancing with the Stars (!). And then her sudden, surprise death.

The memoir helps make sense of some things, including her relationships, her mental illness, and her approach to her art. I wish I had appreciated her more while she was alive. I wish she had lived long enough to have more of a public "rehabilitation" (something more satisfying than a brief stint on Dancing with the Stars), becoming better appreciated by all of us for her talent and verve. And I wish she had had the opportunity to write another memoir, bringing us up-to-date on her life story, showing that she survived the slings and arrows of fame and misfortune, teaching us what she had learned over the years, and enchanting us with ideas for a creative, successful future.

But this memoir is all we have. And that's surely a pity.

[Kelley Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow a chilling account of Anne’s life from childhood and beyond. Resilience comes to mind however the journey to get there comes with a price. Heartbreaking to think of a child robbed of their innocence. Family disfunction at it’s worst and honestly no one knows what is really going on behind closed doors. The fact Anne was able to overcome these horrors inflicted on her is a miracle. A fascinating read that will leave you gasping. I wanted to read this after Ms. Heche died recently. A tear jerker for sure. So sad her life ended in the way it did, but her words will live on. RIP

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found and listened to on youtube

[Adriana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like many actresses, Anne Heche comes from a struggling religious family, and from abusive and neglectful parents. I’m reading this book after finding out Anne was killed for trying to expose S.A. in Hollywood. It makes all the sense in the world after reading her story where her own father SAused her as a baby. The book discusses that, her acting career, the therapy she took to overcome the SA, a psychotic breakdown that anyone with her history would have and her relationship with Ellen. It’s a very heartbreaking book about what sexual abuse does to people and how it impacts their entire lives.