Out Came the Sun

Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illness, Addiction, and Suicide in My Family

By: Mariel Hemingway

Narrated by: Mariel Hemingway

Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

A moving, compelling memoir about growing up and escaping the tragic legacy of mental illness, suicide, addiction, and depression in one of America's most famous families: the Hemingways.

She opens her eyes. The room is dark. She hears yelling, smashed plates, and wishes it was all a terrible dream. But it isn't. This is what it was like growing up as a Hemingway. In this deeply moving, searingly honest new memoir, actress and mental health icon Mariel Hemingway shares in candid detail the story of her troubled childhood in a famous family haunted by depression, alcoholism, illness, and suicide. Born just a few months after her grandfather, Ernest Hemingway, shot himself, it was Mariel's mission as a girl to escape the desperate cycle of severe mental health issues that had plagued generations of her family. Surrounded by a family tortured by alcoholism (Mariel's parents), depression (her sister, Margaux), suicide (her grandfather and four other members of her family), schizophrenia (her sister, Muffet), and cancer (her mother), it was all the young Mariel could do to keep her head. In a compassionate voice, she reveals her painful struggle to stay sane as the youngest child in her family, coping with the chaos by becoming obsessive about her food, schedule, and organization.

The twisted legacy of her family has never quite let go of Mariel, but in this memoir she opens up about her claustrophobic marriage, her faltering acting career, and her turning to spiritual healers and charlatans for solace. Mariel has ultimately written a story of triumph about learning to overcome her family's demons and developing love and deep compassion for them. At last she can tell the true story of the tragedies and troubles of the Hemingway family, and she delivers an audiobook that beckons comparisons with Mary Karr and Jeanette Walls.

©2015 Mariel Hemingway (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Interesting and helpful.

I enjoyed hearing the authors pleasant voice telling her story as nobody else ever could. At the end, she lists many of the organizations that help people with a long list of maladies, such as depression, various addictions, and suicidal tendencies or surviving the suicide of a loved one. She also made me want to watch again some of the movies she payed in, and reread some of her grandfather, Ernest Hemingway's books.

Thank you Mariel, and Audible Books for this wonderful resents toon.

Beautiful story

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Mariel tell her story. She’s engaging, honest, & I enjoyed every minute.

enjoyable listen

she comes across genuine and open with a deeply personal topic. interesting experiences...but still very human.

Courageous

Honest and straightforward. Well written. Heartwarming. I love Mariel narrating it. I recommend it for everyone in a family.

Wow! I couldn’t stop listening.

This book offers hope for anyone growing up in a dysfunctional family. It may provide an understanding to someone from a “normal” family to interpret the struggles a person from a dysfunctional family has with everyday experiences.

You’re not alone

So many parts of this story felt as though I was telling my own! Thank you Mariel for being honest and using your voice!

Fascinating story, sloppy narration

The story was sad and interesting, and I appreciate it was read by the author. However her voice and speech was a bit slurred at times.

Connected through her storytelling....

Beautifully expressed and I feel as though I knew all members of the family. Thanks for being so intimate, you're a strong woman and your grandfather would be proud.

Good book, terrible narration

I’m only half way through the book and am seriously considering cutting my losses and being done with it. It’s an excellent story! I just wished I’d read the physical book instead of getting the audio version. The narration is so slurred and choppy, along with awful editing, it’s incredibly difficult to listen to. I don’t know that I’ve ever written a negative review on an audiobook, but this one is nearing unbearable and I feel like it’s fair to warn others. Buy the book and read it!

A decent memoir

I found myself relating to some of Mariel's family issues, especially in the beginning of the book and especially with her mother, so I enjoyed that part of the book. Mariel seems to be a nice, humble, down-to-earth person, with quirks and flaws just like everyone else, and that made her likable and relatable to the average person. She did a lil bit more name-dropping than I would have liked, but hey, she's a celebrity, and that's part of her story, so I chalked it up to that. There were a few parts in the book, right around the middle of it, that I didn't find interesting, but continued to listen anyway. Overall, I liked the story and I don't regret my purchase, but it wasn't the best book I've ever read.

My biggest complaint was how Mariel read the story. She has a nice voice, and for the most part she read it fine, but there were times when she stumbled or slurred a word to the point where she should have gone back and re-recorded it. It sounded sloppy when she did that, and maybe it's just how she speaks, but that seems unlikely...it was probably more of an issue of not wanting to re-record it, which to me sounds like laziness. If I'm purchasing an audiobook, I want to enjoy what I'm hearing, not be distracted by stumbles and mumbles of words.