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by Anne Heche Courtesy of The Letter Call Me Crazy , by Anne Heche, New York: Scribner. A Lisa Drew Book, 2001. 251 pp. hardback. ISBN 0-7432-1689-X. 
Yep, she's crazy.
Sorry, couldn't resist. Actually, that's a cheap shot. Actress Anne Heche former paramour of America's lesbian darling, Ellen deGeneres isn't so much crazy as very fragile and sometimes extremely confused. That such a paper-thin personality has been able to survive 31 years says much about the inner core of the human spirit. But readers who join her on her journey will feel wrung out by the end of this uneven book, which feels like a barely edited first draft. That's a shame because towards the end Heche has some valuable spiritual (i.e., non-religious) things to say. Readers who grow tired of her dreck will miss out on her few, deeply-felt insights about love and self-acceptance. But in order to get there you have to trudge through fields of vulgar muck and daisy-field ditziness. If you do get to page 187, you could easily be turned off thereafter by her talk of becoming Jesus. Not like Jesus. Jesus.
Oh yes, her relationship with Ellen and last year's oh-so-embarrassing episode with the spaceship. Heche is kind, though frank, about Ellen. What started out as a deep romance ended up not fulfilling the needs of either partner. Familiar tale. Heche says she ended up immersing herself in Ellen's career at the expense of her own. Again, familiar. Ellen's two-year depression following the cancellation of her show, and the pressure of the media and the Hollywood system in general, eventually inundated the couple. There was no hope for normalcy. Too familiar. As for going to Fresno to look for an alien spaceship, call it a disastrous mental breakdown set off by the club drug Ecstasy. A person like Heche has no business doing any drugs. We don't believe, as Heche sniffs, she's been crazy her entire life, but she's certainly had some bizarre periods when reality and fantasy were inextricably intertwined. That dysfunctional history makes it difficult at times to ascertain exactly what's true and what's not. Her extensive use of reconstructed conversations, and her occasional leaps of logic, combine to make crucial parts of her story too fictionalistic. We do feel for Heche and wish her well. She's obviously a woman on the edge who needed to be pulled back. We hold no grudges over her flip-flop sexual interests; women's sexuality has greater fluidity than men's. But after finishing this book you'll feel like the friend of someone who's discovered she can turn water into skim milk. You want to say, "OK, Anne, that's fine" even as you back slowly out the door and down the street for a shot of Jim Beam. |