Out Came the Sun: Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illne… (2024)

From the beginning of her memoir, Out Came the Sun: Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illness, Addiction and Suicide in My Family, Mariel Hemingway makes it clear that addiction and mental illness is not just a curse of the famous Hemingway family, but something playing out in families across the country. At the same time, it’s personal (as any poignant account of living through and suffering from mental illness is going to be). While it doesn’t offer much about Ernest Hemingway (for those of you who might be curious), Out Came the Sun provides an account of Mariel's struggle with mental illness as well as a glimpse of what it was like to grow up as a Hemingway. Mariel also offers some insight on being a not quite child star in Hollywood (some might remember her in Woody Allen’s Manhattan, a film in which she played Woody’s much younger girlfriend; he was 42 and she was 17). As a reader, I didn’t always connect to Mariel Hemingway’s challenges because, in situations which were no doubt quite traumatic, she sometimes seemed to be reporting the facts rather than letting the reader share the pain. Overall, though, this was an interesting read. 3.5 stars.

Out Came the Sun: Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illness, Addiction, and Suicide in My Family
by Mariel Hemingway, Ben Greenman
I got this from the library. I got this audio version so it would sound like she was telling me her life history. She really doesn't hold back. She tells about her chaotic family life with parents that drank and fought. The oldest sister that was schizophrenic and bipolar. She had to have shock treatments and was never a functional adult. The middle sister was cruel to her and had a drug and drinking problem that ended up overdosing.
Mariel talks about the many roles she played and who she was with. But she also tells about who tried to get into her pants during those times. She talks about her boyfriends and marriages.
Throughout the book she describes herself as the normal one in the family but as you read the book you see she is far from normal. She is better than her sisters but not normal. What is normal? For her, she is.

She played roles that really were warping to a young mind. She had a crazy house to live in. Several family members had committed suicide, had mental issues, and I don't doubt she does too. PTSD, OCD, depression, and more.

Lots of interesting pieces but lots of uninteresting sections too. She goes into detail about her fads of health at various times. Health gurus, diets, crystals, and other things. She tells the reader all about them.

To be quite honest, this is not a book I'd normally have read or bought or enjoyed but I had to ask myself how many opportunities one gets to meet a Hemingway at a small bookstore near one's home. And so, having decided against a lunch gathering involving Mariel Hemingway at the stately Union League Club, I took advantage of a less expensive option that evening, finding the experience quite uplifting.

Out Came The Sun: Overcoming The Legacy Of Mental Illness, Addiction & Suicide In My Family is in fact a hybrid expression of what it is like to suffer from what some label the "Hemingway curse", but more than that, it is a self-help book that offers the possibility of a more healthful life to the world at large.

I was struck by someone who had been involved with several Woody Allen films & lived in the afterglow of her famous grandfather, "Papa Hemingway", could seem to offer a rare kind of innocence and at the same time, a haunting vulnerability.

Or, as Mariel Hemingway put it:

The story of my life & this book is a story of how unhappiness can bloom like a black flower & also how people find ways to prune it back and to gain a sense of balance. one of stability & peace and at length, wisdom. My family represented those I loved the most & the people I was most like but they were also terrifying examples of how balance could be thrown off & an otherwise regulated existence could be overwhelmed by emotional blockage or mental derangement.

Ms. Hemingway mentioned that her parents had to alter their states significantly to have any chance at self-expression, "being repressed by circ*mstance, by genetics, by a misguided marriage, so that they couldn't be themselves in a healthy way, taking extreme measures with the help of alcohol."

Here sister Margaux was also both a comfort at times & an extreme threat at others. Mariel sought acting as a way to get better at being herself but ultimately rebelled at what she saw as the false values of Hollywood, aiming to find a better way of balancing who she felt she was & who she aimed to become.

Mariel Hemingway was born shortly after her famous grandfather committed suicide & suggests to "being a Hemingway but not a Hemingway scholar". She goes on to say that being a Hemingway...

means that she has a ticket to understanding a world of darkness, of courage, of sadness, of excitement and at times, of complete lunacy. Ernest Hemingway abandoned those who needed him, my father among them, when he killed himself but he abandoned them nay times before that as well due to ever-increasing depression.

When he left my grandmother, Hadley, shortly after my father's birth, he weighed a life of normalcy & love against a life of creative devotion. It is said that he loved Hadley more than any woman he was ever with, and in leaving her he chose to be Ernest Hemingway, Great Writer, rather than Ernest Hemingway, man, husband, father. No one can say for sure, but I imagine that he felt concerned that he couldn't have both lives.

I have made the opposite sacrifices, choosing family over career or others over myself. Have those sacrifices made me happier than they made him? We accommodate others & we assert ourselves. We forgive ourselves for our fears & we forge ahead bravely. Over the course of our lives, trapped in our lives, liberated by our lives, we become strong at the broken places.

*There is an appendix at the back of this memoir that consists of "Resources for Mental Health, Substance Abuse & Better Living."

**Within my review are photos of Mariel Hemingway, including one with Woody Allen & another with her late sister Margauux.

It's too bad this book has had a few bad reviews because I thought it was lovely. After hearing Mariel speak about her journey with her family tragedies, I found her to be humbling and very real. I discovered the same humble and real Mariel in this book. She writes with respect and grace and is honest about her struggles with her family name, her parent's alcoholism, her sister's mental illness, all while trying to figure out who she is and how she fits into her world.

I was really disappointed by Dr. Jennifer Ashton's book on surviving suicide. Then I picked up this book. I couldn't believe how honest and reflective it was. Mariel Hemingway is so down to earth and so matter of fact about everything that you don't even notice at first how hard she's working to explain her challenges to herself and to the reader. You don't even remember that she's a beautiful, glamorous actress from a famous family. I could identify with almost everything she talked about in describing her dysfunctional family. It's almost uncanny sometimes how the problems she talks about with her parents seem to come right out of my own life.

At the same time, there's plenty of fascinating insider stories about Hollywood in the eighties and nineties. One of the disarming things about Mariel Hemingway is that she never, ever seems to be out to get even. There are some pretty unflattering anecdotes in here about guys like Robert Towne and Robert DeNiro, both Hollywood legends. But then again there are some really warm and friendly stories about guys like John Candy, John Cougar Mellencamp, and even Gene Hackman. The thing that comes across is that Mariel is totally focused on how she can be a better person, and she takes full responsibility for her actions. So when other people are messed up she doesn't use it as an excuse, she just records it and moves on.

This is a really inspiring book -- and in the back there are some great resources listed for people who need to learn more about getting help with drugs, alcohol, depression, and abuse.

Disappointed in the poor writing that was so surface level and monotone for a story that has such potential. The granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, Mariel, describes her life growing up in a family riddled with mental illness, suicide, addiction, physical illness, marriage issues, etc. There is so much drama and space for a deeper look in to these issues, but the story telling is completely one note, more like a news reporting than a memoir.

A nice memoir read by the author herself Mariel Hemingway.

Written quite simply and an easy one to hold my attention. Her family struggles are not unique however her families mental health and the often referred to "Hemingway curse" is often a major cross to bear for her, the family is riddled with mental health problems, and the black cloud of suicides that have plagued the family throughout the generations. It is hard to comprehend how anyone coming out of this family could ever be "normal" I love the references she often makes regarding her Grandfather, although only a baby when he passed away (he shot himself) her memories of him are very prominent and he becomes a great figure in her mind, the fact she grew up knowing he was such an important literary figure was often a blessing as much as a curse. She delves into the early days of her rise to stardom at a young age overshadowing the earlier rise of her glamorous rebellious sister Margaux, barely equipped to understand some of the adult themes that was required to undertake her roles. This story takes us from the simple but oppressive world of country Idaho to the exciting and unknown world of grown ups in New York and movie land L.A, although she is involved in the seedy world of acting and is often surrounded by opportunistic older male figures she often has a childlike quality to her and is often perplexed how others perceive her as a sexual being. I enjoyed some of her anecdotes concerning some of the directors she worked with, some are downright funny and bizarre. It was fun reading (hearing) the earlier days of Hollywood predominately the early 80's brought back a lot of memories of that time. I enjoyed the final passages where she finds some sense of peace and looks back embracing the fragility of life around her past concerning her troubled family legacy but also accepting her own voice and sharing it with her audience in a sincere way

Mariel Hemingway’s memoir attracted me because her grandfather Ernest Hemingway was one of my idols. I was an undergraduate when he committed suicide. It was surely the greatest disillusionment of my entire life, @ least till then. Hemingway’s books had created the very model and ideal of courage for me. But it had failed him. Till recently I’d never again worshiped at the shrine, but last year The Sun Also Rises was a choice for a GR Classics Group read, and the old magic still works. When the movie Lipstick appeared in 1976 starring EH’s granddaughter the model Margaux Hemingway with 13 year old Mariel playing her sister, I saw it out of curiosity & thought Margaux couldn’t act but Mariel could (even tho’ we learn from this book she’d had no training whatever). Her family resemblance was obvious too, not attractive but striking & very wholesome. About the same time a full-page photo of her father Jack in his trout fishing outfit appeared in some magazine like Esquire & he too looked completely Hemingwayesque. I’d not known that Jack had a serious drink problem, as would Margaux, nor could I have foreseen that, like her grandfather, Margaux would ultimately commit suicide. I also watched Mariel in her slightly weird role as Woody Allen’s teenaged girlfriend Tracy in Manhattan, but then I lost touch with her. Now I feel very guilty for not seeing Personal Best (1982) & Star 80 (1983) - her account of preparing for them & the personal relationships they involved (confirming my suspicion that Bob Fosse was a total sleaze) were for me the most engaging portions of this book. But they weren’t the sorts of movies I watched back then. Now I so look forward to seeing them.

Autobiography is a fascinatingly complex genre in that the author, the narrator, & the principal character claim the same identity. The audible made it even better because the author was also the reader, so it was like having an invisible Mariel Hemingway sitting in my passenger seat telling me her story, in a very expressive & appealing voice. So whatever its shortcomings as a memoir, Out Came the Sun was definitely a five star listening experience. It left me admiring Mariel Hemingway enormously, including for sticking so long with such a difficult marriage. It was easy for me to sympathize with her issues (issues? well, she was living in LA) with food & self-image, tho’ mine are quite different. Her spiritual journey, with some gurus & advisors along the way who struck me as pretty flakey, involved much wasted effort but seems to have reached safe harbor. Mariel’s spiritual formation had no grounding growing up in such a chaotic family with such self-centered parents (alcohol does that), & spiritual growth was very much a DIY effort for Mariel. Fortunately she has found what works for her in Yoga, nutrition, exercise, nature & a good relationship. Tho’ I very much admire her decision to put family & children ahead of her professional career, her strong devotion to the craft of acting & high standards of professionalism also come out like the sun & shines through this memoir. Listening to it really was like rediscovering a friend you wished you’d got back in touch with a lot sooner, but thankfully you did.

Mariel Hemingway comes from a particularly dysfunctional family, one plagued by mental illness, suicide, addiction and tragedy. Both growing up and as an adult she has had much to contend with, and in this compelling memoir she doesn’t shy away from being honest in her account of her own difficulties as well as those of her parents and siblings. She talks about how she has managed to build a life for herself and somehow avoid the worst of the troubles that so affected the rest of her family. This is no misery memoir, she doesn’t wallow in self-pity, but simply relates the facts, and there’s a simplicity to her writing that I found refreshing. I very much enjoyed this book, and learnt a lot about Mariel herself and the people she has met along the way.

I found this memoir to be sincere and quite inspiring; as she points out towards the end, you don't have to be a Hemingway (or an actress) to identify with her struggles. (Although I could probably relate more to black-sheep Margaux than people-pleasing Mariel--what a tragedy that Margaux's memoir can never be written.) I was hoping for a bit more about her yoga and spirituality, but I guess she already wrote that book.

surprisingly introspective in some ways but why does everyone who ever worked with woody have to ride his dick so hard lmao. mariel's obviously a lil different because he preyed on her when she was a child but i truly don't understand this Actor's Compulsion to celebrate and defend this ugly loser creep who should be pushed in front of the nearest semi! woody allen die bitch

Slightly overwrought account of Mariel Hemingway's life, she either underplayed the manifestation of her neuroses or overstated the extent of her mental anguish. For example she hints at OCD several times, but her description of her OCD symptoms are not really clinical OCD, just your normal, slightly over anxious perfectionist type behaviour, which is fine, if slightly insulting to those who actually suffer from OCD which plays havoc with their lives. Mariel may well actually have OCD, but if she does, she hasn't told us the whole story here, and I feel that is the problem with the whole book.

My problem with memoir is that it is impossible to write one without sounding self-absorbed, since it's A BOOK ABOUT YOURSELF. This memoir suffered a little of that, but on the whole I found Mariel to be sincere and humble. As an Ernest Hemingway fan I hoped that there would be more of him in the book, but he died before Mariel was born. The little she did say about him I rolled my eyes at, something about him loving so deeply that he had to push people away...ummm...I think it was more that he was just a pretty self-centered guy who was used to having his way...but whatever.
I usually have beef with memoirists who write about their childhood and horrible parents as if they know everything about their parents and their struggles, but I thought Mariel managed to convey her own experience and difficult childhood while still allowing her parents to be their own characters and recognizing that they were fighting their own battles.
Like the author, my favorite Hemingway book is A Moveable Feast, and it made be sad that Bumby ended up with such a sad life :(
I listened to this book, which was read by the author, and I have to say that her reading was really distracting. She stumbled over or slurred so many words, and had awkward, inappropriate pauses in the middle of sentences. I was baffled...she's an actress, reading her own book...She was more like one of my high school students reading something someone else wrote...I felt the same way I do when watching the Oscars...why in the world can't these actors, who recite lines for a living, read a cue card more convincingly????

I'm in a bad rut. Reading memoirs and bios and autobios that are the equivalent of eating McDonald's instead of real food. I see these books at the library where I am weak. I say, oh just this one lightweight book won't be so terrible. No, often it is terrible. This was a good example. Mariel is a competent writer, or maybe had a competent editor, and her family story certainly has a lot of legitimate drama to create an interesting memoir. But sadly I grew to dislike her deeply, a person I never had feelings for at all. She was just an actress in a movie I loved (Manhattan) and the granddaughter of a writer I admired. But she's not a particularly admirable person and has a habit I dislike. She blames her family for any unhappiness in her life instead of taking any personal responsibility for bad decisions. I guess she's honest about her feelings and I guess that's good. (But The Donald seems to be honest about his feelings and I know that's bad.) I decided after closing this book that I must now read a book with some nutrients so I picked up one of the George Orwell books I've not yet read: Down and Out in Paris and London. Orwell is always a palate cleanser. And then I think I'll read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Packed with nutrition I suspect.

Having listened to the Out Came The Sun by Mariel Hemingway, an Audible realise narrated by the author herself. It is a candid and touching autobiography that has left me emotionally touched by the honest, confession like personal and family story; in this boom, Mariel is speaking about her experience growing with the Hemingway surname, how it has affected her, her family, siblings. She openly talks about multiple predicaments before she was born, about her childhood, early career and what happened after that.

I read her memoir, "Finding my balance". I thought it was very good. "Out came the sun" tells the same stories. Is this some sort of fad with show business types who need money? Neil Young just did this as well. Not cool.

Mariel Hemingway always seemed like the golden girl to me, having first spotted her in Francesco Scavullo's gushing "Beauty". Hemingway and her sisters, Joan and Margeaux were featured, but Mariel appealed most to me. Joan seemed to goofy, Margeaux conceited, Mariel down to earth and self effacing.
I felt like I grew up with her and admired her physical transformation for Personal Best, though it was not her best acting work, as well as her stable personal life, restaurant business and health consciousness.
Out Came the Sun reveals that her life was anything but charmed, darkly tainted by the "Hemingway curse"

Mariel Hemingway crafted a pointed story of her life and family legacy. She's Ernest Hemingway's granddaughter. She addresses mental health and suicide in a direct and informed way. It was beautiful to hear her acknowledge the value of 12-step programs. She didn't ignore or put down any ways a person might get to a place of spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental well-being. I like her.

Mariel Hemingway has written a raw honest bok about her life her family the legacy of suicide&mental illness&her own search difficult at times to find her happiness.bher path in life.

Ernest Hemingway egyik lányunokája írta ezt a könyvet a családjukról, annak (nem) működéséről, a szülők és gyerekek egymáshoz és az alkoholhoz való viszonyáról, pszichés betegségeikről. Összességében megállapítható, hogy Hemingwaynek sem egyszerűbb lenni, mint bárki másnak. És amikor ezt a könyvet olvastam, otthon a könyvespolcról rám esett épp a Vándorünnep...:-o Úgyhogy senki ne mondja, hogy a dolgok véletlenül történnek, nem hiszek ebben.

This is a very honest memoir by Mariel Hemingway that details the dysfunction in her immediate family, the history of mental illness, depression and suicide in the famous Hemingway family and her own struggles in life. Yet, it is not a depressing tome. This is partly because the memoir is interspersed with anecdotes, some light hearted told in an almost gossipy manner from her life. A favorite example was Woody Allen's visit to mountainous Ketchum to visit Mariel and her family after the teen aged Mariel starred in Allen's movie, Manhattan. She humorously describes the exhausted Allen following Mariel and her dad on a hike that bushwacked through the brush instead of following to the trail, to his blanching when he learned that the dinner he just finished was a pheasant that Jack has just killed to his mortification that there were no clubs to take Mariel to after dinner. True to the spirit of the memoir the story turns dark when her parents have no objection to Allen's proposal that he take the underage Mariel for a trip to Paris, it is up to Mariel to say no. Hemingway also describes Bob Fosse chasing her around a hotel room during a break in the filming of Star 80, her attending the screening of Superman IV with Prince Charles in London, and her various tv and movie roles.
These detours give respite from her descriptions of her family's dysfunction; her parents' drinking, her sister Muffet's breakdowns and inpatient treatments, her sister Margot's demons which often manifested into jealously of Mariel until Margot committed suicide. Again, Mariel is candid, not sparing herself such as when she describes going to a high school reunion a passionate hooking up with a high school crush, inviting the crush to visit her in Hollywood only to ignore his phone calls when he takes her up on the offer and goes to Hollywood.
The memoir also does not turn to despair because of the interludes of Mariel's healthy lifestyle which culminates to her current happy life. Throughout her life, Mariel loved the outdoors and tells of her hiking, horseback riding, biking, and skiing which give welcome breaks from the tales of dysfunction , depression and suicide. She also describes her increasing commitment to healthy diet and lifestyle which she attributes to her current positive, though certainly not Pollyanish outlook on life

The writing ranges from horrific to meh. Of course, some Hemingway gossip is always interesting. Not descriptive enough, what was Muffet's behavior actually like? Seems to be justifying her choices much of the time. I would have found some excellent non-examples of sentence structure if I was still teaching.

Typical celebrity autobiography. Nothing to see here.

OMG, the cover! Did the photographer deliberately have her do a vulgar act with her fingers? Maybe the photographer was Woody Allen, LOL

I really liked her documentary more. This was good, but something was just a little off for me.

Just because her name is Hemingway doesn't mean it's a great book. It's just bad. Poorly written, goes all over the place, jumps around in time and doesn't really get to any point.

The material is rich - the writing is not.

3.5

“…the person she had become in the public eye, didn’t match how she felt inside..”

Powerful effort by Mariel and bold choice laying her skeletons out of the closet for us all to see and hear, especially with her self read free audible. But did she?

She has plenty of names to throw around and the most substantial her grandfather the infamous author. She delivers a lot of information about her very personal experiences, and shares her own journey of processing her struggles which I admire. she makes herself come off fair to all parties she criticized, including and honorable to herself. If inside stories and fun pearls of fascinating people sounds appealing I say read or listen to this book.

However, stop before the next paragraph if you are sensitive to info about the read and want everything to be a complete surprise. I find this problematic to rate personally because I can’t relate to so many of her problems and my reactions to situations are quite opposite of hers. Certain passages sounded to me like profound writing and activated my emotions. whereas the themes like the quote above falls so flat. Even normal people don’t match inside relative to a “public eye” so to observe that about one of the original supermodels with a grandfather who has evolved to be one of the most notable keepers of history is not 4 or 5 star writing. I only get one book a month on Audible so I mostly read included classics or rarely a kind of oddball, how do I give this 4 stars if I gave that to Nostromo? I want to but I can’t.

My skin literally crawled when she gave a huge explanation about how she never had absolute proof that her sisters suffered abuse at the hand of their father, but somehow had enough suspicion about it to make a large point of it? The trouble really began when she then concludes that her mother who she claims falls short as an endless source of negatively and judgements was just as bad, no worse !! then possible child abuse !? I can’t claim to know what she is thinking but I suspect that man vs woman inequality that she adamantly addresses in other themes in her book is not only thrown out the window but also pervasive in her perspective.

My concern was driven home with her self driven insanity as a 17 year old girl having to deal with the pressure of being terrified of sex and her realization that Woody Allen wants to take her to Paris and have sex with her. Her reaction was to be furious at her parents for allowing her to go! Despite my disgust of Woody’s behavior being considered acceptable, I commend Mariel for having the self preservation to stop anything before it started. All her self doubt and loathing should be pride for standing up for her own feelings and choices.

Me personally, my parents would have locked me in a closet before letting me go to a foreign county with an older man. Not being terrified of sex and being an invincible teenager, my mother would have literally gone to paris to supervise and I probably would have managed to find some type of romance along the way, because old men were/are not my thing.

Not only is Woody Allen accused by his step daughter with Mia Farrow of molesting her, he married Mia Farrows adopted daughter and was having an affair with her in her early teen years!? This may have been acceptable behaviors in the 70s, but time to step it up and it’s not to much to ask for gross old men to wait til 18 and not prey on their own household.

Driven home AGAIN when she reaches back out to him because her youth is now faded in her late 20s and she has hopes up like he is going to make her great again and instead gives her a couple of washed up lines symbolically putting a tombstone on her career. She is like why didn’t he notice is me anymore, hmmm because you are no longer a child!

CW: suicide, addiction, childhood sexual assault, mental illness, and incest

This is the memoir of Mariel Hemingway, an Academy Award-nominated actor-turned-mental health advocate. Her grandfather was Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel Laureate who ultimately died by suicide at the age of 61. Throughout her memoir, Mariel Hemingway tries to express the stifling coldness of her family home as both a symptom of and the cause of generational trauma in her family. Her childhood was certainly traumatic- she describes her parents’ unloving marriage and heavy drinking, her eldest sister’s mental illness, and her mother’s decades-long fight with cancer, and more. It feels cold to say that the writing style of this book lessened the impact of these tragedies, but I do believe that it ultimately lessened my connection to this book. I mostly read this book via audiobook, and Hemingway narrates it herself. Although she’s an actor, I found her narration pretty awkward, and you could hear edits in the recording multiple times.

I'm going to get into the content that may be triggering here:
Additionally, the writer presents strange excuses for inexcusable behavior. For example, early in the book, she insinuates that she suspects that her father sexually abused her sisters when they were teens. She never commits to this theory, just that it’s something she’s considered in recent years. Hemingway then makes statements along the lines of “My mother was withholding with her affections, isn’t that just as bad if not worse?” Um…. the answer is no. This whole segment is put into an even worse perspective when, after quickly skimming Margaux Hemingway’s Wikipedia page, I read that Margaux publicly stated that her godfather molested her as a child which led to an estrangement between her and her father and step-mother just a few years before her suicide. Mariel Hemingway doesn’t get into this in the book, which seems strange after the comments she made about her father.
Another example is when Hemingway describes working with Woody Allen. She says that during the shoot for Manhattan (where she at 16 or 17 played Allen’s character’s underage girlfriend, Allen was in his 40s) they became “friends”. She says he tried multiple times over several months to convince her to travel to Paris with him. When she realized that it would be as a girlfriend, the still-underage Mariel rejected him. Hemingway reflects in her memoir (I’m paraphrasing): “It must have been confusing for him, since I was playing such a mature person in the movie, and he must have gotten mixed up.” Again… no.

Despite these genuinely problematic elements, the pedestrian writing, and the mediocre audiobook narration, I found myself somewhat enjoying myself at times. I especially liked the closing chapters of the book, where I felt like she grew quite a bit.