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A review by brice_mo
Men Have Called Her Crazy by Anna Marie Tendler
4.25
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!
Anna Marie Tendler’s Men Have Called Her Crazy is an absolute mic drop of a debut, showcasing a voice that is as pointed as it is compassionate. It’s the rare memoir that seems like a gift to its author as much as its audience.
The book essentially contains two interwoven memoirs—Tendler’s childhood & young adulthood and her time in rehab in the early 2020s. Through both sections, the author articulates the complexities of heavy subjects like self-harm and gendered violence, but she avoids memoirish tropes by always giving generously to readers. For example, Tendler never waxes poetic about her motivations for self-destructive tendencies, but she looks beneath them to pinpoint the allure of self-erasure, which will be helpful for readers who share her struggles. Similarly, she has a remarkable gift—and a cultivated skill—in her ability to parse out misogynistic subtext in “innocuous” conversations and cut to the heart of its motivation. This is a book that recognizes the validity of personal experience, so when Tendler approaches misogyny head-on, she doesn’t fall into the common memoir trap of suddenly trying to cite studies or statistics. Instead, she leans into the authority of her own experience, knowing that it’s enough.
Moments in the book remind me of the kind of self-emptying on display in Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died, where readers may wonder if too much is being shared—if it’s at the author’s expense. But like that book, Men Have Called Her Crazy ultimately reveals a steady authorial hand and someone who is healthy enough to safely talk about their worst moments. Tendler writes unapologetically about her failures so that she can write honestly about her triumphs, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen such focused self-awareness in a memoir.
As one might expect, distance offers perspective, and I personally feel that Tendler’s storytelling and wisdom—yes, that feels like the right word—are at their best when she writes about the time prior to rehab. She makes genuine efforts to honor people as people, whether that means celebratory descriptions of momentary female friendship, damning criticism of predatory men, or bitter recognition that some therapist-client relationships can be volatile. Seriously, this is one of the first books I’ve read that doesn’t elevate a therapist to a god-like guru, and I really admire Tendler’s ability to explore that nuance. As an example of how she describes relationships, at one point, she writes, “It is disorienting to feel compassion for a person I have decided not to like.” It’s such a gracious mindset, but it still holds that grace in tension with the reality of experience.
This is a profile of rehab as much as it’s a memoir, with Tendler sharing all the different realities of the institution. These parts of the book feel a little arduous, seemingly covering every detail of Tendler’s stay in the hospital. It begins to read like a list of events, which dampens some of the sharp, reflective insight that sustains the book’s best moments. That said, this critique is likely a matter of taste because the approach does lend a sense of claustrophobia to the whole thing—the author’s anxiety and depression feel almost like they don’t have the space they need to diffuse, which is rhetorically and emotionally effective. I think there’s also a lot of value here for someone who might be considering institutional help but feels afraid of the unknown. Tendler offers a walkthrough of sorts, and I have little doubt it will be the more resonant part of the book for some people. Even so, I feel there are a few too many possible endings, and some chapters might be a bit more effective as standalone essays.
Despite this being Tendler’s story and hers alone, it feels almost necessary to address the elephant in the room—or rather, the elephant that has been locked out of the room. To the author’s credit, she alludes to the pathetic sad-sack(lunch bunch) manchild that exacerbated many of her struggles without ever giving him space. He’s irrelevant—a redundancy. I’m sure part of this is for legal reasons, but, frankly, she’s more gracious than she needs to be, and there’s such a contrast between Tendler’s genuine transparency and *cough* certain men’s *cough*performed authenticity.
I also feel really excited to see what Anna Marie Tendler writes next. Men Have Called Her Crazy is an exceptional debut, and if it’s any indication of what’s to come, there are many great books ahead of us.
Anna Marie Tendler’s Men Have Called Her Crazy is an absolute mic drop of a debut, showcasing a voice that is as pointed as it is compassionate. It’s the rare memoir that seems like a gift to its author as much as its audience.
The book essentially contains two interwoven memoirs—Tendler’s childhood & young adulthood and her time in rehab in the early 2020s. Through both sections, the author articulates the complexities of heavy subjects like self-harm and gendered violence, but she avoids memoirish tropes by always giving generously to readers. For example, Tendler never waxes poetic about her motivations for self-destructive tendencies, but she looks beneath them to pinpoint the allure of self-erasure, which will be helpful for readers who share her struggles. Similarly, she has a remarkable gift—and a cultivated skill—in her ability to parse out misogynistic subtext in “innocuous” conversations and cut to the heart of its motivation. This is a book that recognizes the validity of personal experience, so when Tendler approaches misogyny head-on, she doesn’t fall into the common memoir trap of suddenly trying to cite studies or statistics. Instead, she leans into the authority of her own experience, knowing that it’s enough.
Moments in the book remind me of the kind of self-emptying on display in Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died, where readers may wonder if too much is being shared—if it’s at the author’s expense. But like that book, Men Have Called Her Crazy ultimately reveals a steady authorial hand and someone who is healthy enough to safely talk about their worst moments. Tendler writes unapologetically about her failures so that she can write honestly about her triumphs, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen such focused self-awareness in a memoir.
As one might expect, distance offers perspective, and I personally feel that Tendler’s storytelling and wisdom—yes, that feels like the right word—are at their best when she writes about the time prior to rehab. She makes genuine efforts to honor people as people, whether that means celebratory descriptions of momentary female friendship, damning criticism of predatory men, or bitter recognition that some therapist-client relationships can be volatile. Seriously, this is one of the first books I’ve read that doesn’t elevate a therapist to a god-like guru, and I really admire Tendler’s ability to explore that nuance. As an example of how she describes relationships, at one point, she writes, “It is disorienting to feel compassion for a person I have decided not to like.” It’s such a gracious mindset, but it still holds that grace in tension with the reality of experience.
This is a profile of rehab as much as it’s a memoir, with Tendler sharing all the different realities of the institution. These parts of the book feel a little arduous, seemingly covering every detail of Tendler’s stay in the hospital. It begins to read like a list of events, which dampens some of the sharp, reflective insight that sustains the book’s best moments. That said, this critique is likely a matter of taste because the approach does lend a sense of claustrophobia to the whole thing—the author’s anxiety and depression feel almost like they don’t have the space they need to diffuse, which is rhetorically and emotionally effective. I think there’s also a lot of value here for someone who might be considering institutional help but feels afraid of the unknown. Tendler offers a walkthrough of sorts, and I have little doubt it will be the more resonant part of the book for some people. Even so, I feel there are a few too many possible endings, and some chapters might be a bit more effective as standalone essays.
Despite this being Tendler’s story and hers alone, it feels almost necessary to address the elephant in the room—or rather, the elephant that has been locked out of the room. To the author’s credit, she alludes to the pathetic sad-sack(lunch bunch) manchild that exacerbated many of her struggles without ever giving him space. He’s irrelevant—a redundancy. I’m sure part of this is for legal reasons, but, frankly, she’s more gracious than she needs to be, and there’s such a contrast between Tendler’s genuine transparency and *cough* certain men’s *cough*performed authenticity.
I also feel really excited to see what Anna Marie Tendler writes next. Men Have Called Her Crazy is an exceptional debut, and if it’s any indication of what’s to come, there are many great books ahead of us.