No, I Haven't Read That: "Men Have Called Her Crazy (A Memoir)" by Anna Marie Tendler

Mental Breakdowns, Men Bad, and The Elephant In The (Very Wallpapered) Room.

I really think I should change the title of this blog to “No, I Definitely Have Read That,” as I have been, and am right now, “reviewing” (I use that term loosely, obvi, I’m neither a narc nor a hard hitting journalist, but some fun secret third thing!) books that are squarely in Ye Olde Zeitgeist. But, also, the title of the blog is the title of the blog so, here we are and here we shall remain.

Hi, guys! It’s been a while. And there’s more of you! Which of course, fills me with dread as I never thought anyone but my immediate family or my more lachrymose/vain exes would read this but here I am, boldly persisting in saturating the Substack market with more of My Singular Thoughts No One Asked For (TM). But, if I know anything from my own Substack subscription habits, this will most likely go unopened and unread in people’s inboxes, to be deleted along with spam from Brooklinen and Quest Diagnostics so, against my better judgement and instincts for self-preservation, let’s…fucking…go?

My face whilst (listening to) this entire book. This ENTIRE book.

Okay, so as the caption beneath this ex-Bachelorette contestant’s face (pictured immediately after realizing that the grown woman he just kissed is not, in fact, a virgin) would suggest, I did not *read* this book, I *listened* to it. Which means that I was subjected—or rather, that I willingly subjected myself—to seven-ish hours of Anne Marie Tendler’s vocal fry. Which, in and of itself, become it’s own sort of intoxicating good/bad thing, like watching shitty TV while also on your phone, or eating a breakfast burrito in your car on a hot day while hungover. I couldn’t stop; I knew that I should. I even fell asleep to it a couple of times? I found myself trying to mimic the specificity of its intonations to myself, in my apartment? Anyways.

Look: I am not here to lampoon anyone’s vocal intonations, despite what my degree from NYU in “breathing” and “having a diaphragm” would have you believe. Because we have bigger fish to fry!

I found myself, while reading this book, and after having read this book,¹ quite worked up. It felt, to me, like there was a massive component missing to this memoir, which really amounts to honesty; to calling a spade a spade. Which could be attributed to either: A) a certain lack of self-awareness on the author’s part, which is ironic, considering that a memoir of this kind—one that details the rigors and pitfalls of having a brain intent on destroying its host—historically arises from the experience of an extreme clarity of self, for better or worse, or B) an iron-clad NDA and a lot of settlement money that hangs in the balance in which case, respect.

“Men Have Called Her Crazy” follows Anne Marie Tendler’s life through the benchmarks of significant, and significantly painful, relationships—starting from early puberty,² up until her post-divorce, newly-dating adulthood. With one glaring omission. That rhymes with Ron RulRaney.³

Tendler’s writing jumps backwards and forwards in time, threading vignettes from her hospitalization at a fancy rehabilitation facility on the East Coast after a significant mental health breakdown, in between anecdotes from her dating and sexual life as a teenage girl and young adult. We follow Tendler as she learns to trust her own instincts about less-than-perfect mental health professionals, in female friendships, and eventually, in dating. Really, this book is about Tendler finally discovering who she is—and what she has to offer—apart from men.

Which is, I think, an incredibly important act of separation and self-interrogation for any heterosexual woman. Or any woman/femme who has been steeped in a Jungian stew of patriarchy for her entire life. (So, like…All Women. It’s important for all women. And men! Probably).

To ask one’s self the questions: “Do I really like this, or have I been taught to like it because I think it makes me attractive to men?” Or, “For whom do I dress? Work out? Learn ‘domestic’ skills? Myself, or my imagined future husband?” Or, “Do I really like IPAs, neat whiskey, and the idea of ethical non-monogamy, or am I just trying to be a man’s idea of a ‘cool girl?’”is an emboldening and often terrifying act of individuation for any woman⁴. But this is also where I localize my biggest problem with this memoir. Because by not mentioning her most famous and significant ex, by omitting him and the clout, money, and transferrable esteem she gained from their relationship, Tendler erases what could have been the most potent, complex, and interesting argument posed by her otherwise preeeeettttyyyy boiler-plate memoir, and essentially, lies to us about how she got where she is now. And because of whom.

My friend who is not a lawyer (but believe me when I tell you gives off the vibe of *LaWyEr*) told me that Anne Marie Tendler likely promised not to mention JM in her book in order to secure settlement money from their divorce. I don’t like to speculate,⁵ but this sounds pretty reasonable to me. It’s also possible she recognized that her ex-husband is a well-known celebrity with no shortage of very public vulnerabilities, and she wanted to protect him and his new family, so felt no need to air their dirty laundry for everyone buying this book thinking she was about to do just that. Both of these situations are possible and probable. Maybe Marie Tendler just went high when others went low, you know?

EVEN CONSIDERING ALL THAT: she mentions her divorce multiple times, and speaks in thinly veiled terms about the dissolution of her very public marriage at various points throughout the novel. Like, this man talked about her in stand-up specials. You have a chapter about the death of the dog you shared together. We are all very clearly drawing lines from A-B, you know? SO, I think there could have been a way for Tendler to acknowledge the platform, security, and prestige her (likely fraught, I’m sure!) marriage garnered her, without fucking up any NDAs.

While reading⁶ “Men Have Called Her Crazy,” I felt like I was going crazy, constantly pointing to the elephant in the room while Anne Marie Tendler was like “That nearly seven year gap on my resume? Don’t worry about it. What are you, LinkedIn Dot Com? Come on. Would u like some fun floral wallpaper 4 ur bathroom???” Like, girl, you were able to afford to be a professional lampshade maker for years! You were able to have no jobs and attend grad school for fashion, all because you were living off of your famous ex’s very high income, and in his very nice New York City apartment, probably not paying rent. You were able to afford therapy twice a week because of that income, you gained a certain level of public prestige because of your public relationship, and the subsequent messy divorce following your ex’s rehab stint fomented a lot of the interest in and buzz around this book! And to not say that, to not acknowledge it at all, is not only to elide years of what was likely an incredibly formative relationship in a memoir about relationships, but also to, well..lie to us!

The only apt metaphor I can think of is when people get outraged at nepo babies for not being up front about being the children of famous people. We all know the world is fucked and the game is rigged, but if you refuse to acknowledge the amount of success your un-earned and accidental status affords you; if you refuse to acknowledge that you skipped to the front of the line (even if the “line” itself is a fictitious construct), then yeah, people are going to get mad. Because those who are not born into fame are standing at the bottom of a very long ladder, and they think those who are the children of fame can only see the top rung. You know? Just acknowledge how far everyone else behind you has to climb (*cue Miley Cyrus*) and we will be good!

All I wanted was one sentence where Tendler acknowledged that we know her name largely, if not solely, because of who she dated. And wouldn’t it have been a much more complex, interesting, complicated book if she had wrestled with those feelings, with that reality—her specific reality—instead of the oft-regurgitated (but sure, perhaps no less true—if not particularly nuanced) opinion that men, largely, suck ass?

In fact, I would hazard a guess that a lot of the ill-will and vitriol Tendler expresses towards men largely stems from her own tacit understanding (or overt, I don’t know the gal), that she owes much of her public persona and reach to being married to a very famous male comedian, who now has subsequently shacked up with a very beautiful female actress and has two new children. That would make a lot of people—any of us—very angry! Talk about that!

I imagine that it’s an incredibly complicated thing to make good on the promise dangled in front of many women from a young age: that if you are attractive enough, slim enough, good enough—you might get lucky, and get picked by a powerful, talented man. It’s a horrible trap to feel yourself to be a promising young woman who will always be overshadowed by the wealthier man she married. I wanted to hear that story. I wanted Tendler to acknowledge and expose those complications. Instead, she just told me and many other women what we already know.

1. Sry to my friend Carly, who really got a lot of TEXTS from me.

2. …And started becoming attracted to men, which (I believe) for many women also comes with an awareness of death, as you are made to understand in the same breath as ‘congratulations, you’re a woman now’ that you can a) get pregnant, b) have a child (so are no longer a child yourself), c) could die during childbirth, and d) that you will now be desired by men, who women have always known are their main predators. Just SAYING!

3. Believe it or not, this fake name was better than the other two I came up with before it, so.

4. By the way, I don’t think asking yourself these questions or interrogating the tropes of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits, and/or your embodiment or rejection of them, means that you can’t come back to the answers of “Yeah, dude, I really do like IPAs and football and polyamory seems fun and not at all stressful (lol)!” or “I really love cooking for my husband, thank you!” I’m just saying it’s nice to ask and know the answer for yourself.

5. lol jk I do

6. Listening to.