The Hemingway name can take you far down the road to success, but it cannot guarantee happiness. Mariel and her beautiful sisters seemed to have a life made in Heaven, but it was the opposite, a dysfunctional family on a large scale. Her grandfather, Ernest, the novelist who secluded himself in the Florida Keys and Cuba was a spoiled, selfish father who did not show his son Jack that he was important to him. Ernest had three wives. Jack had two. Ernest died from a self-inflicted gunshot.
Their mother had moods and emotional problems, then died from cancer. Margaux led a troubled personal life even with her success as a model and actress who was caught up in the fast lane as so many of the young actors in Los Angeles and took an overdose of drugs, as did a couple other famous stars at their peak.
This memoir has lovely photos of the family who seemed ideal on the surface. Mariel was always trying to find and maintain her balance in times of stress. "My mind was always throwing me off balance with thoughts that are not rooted in the present moment. My journey is my own -- no partner, child or teacher can complete or heal me. We are our own saviors."
After Margaux's tragic death, they made a typically 'unhealthy' pact not to speak publicly about her life or death or any of it. I remember the day it was announced in the newspaper and I was at the Vanderbilt Pain Clinic, when the larger-than-life doctor told me to be thankful I could feel pain after what had happened to young Ms. Hemingway. He was clearly shaken, as he said that she had so much ahead for herself had she stayed off the pills. Mariel had always been athletic so she gravitated to Yoga for the meditative healing aspects. The book is peppered throughout with her in the different poses of Yoga. She is a brave and strong young woman.
Like the reader from Raynham, MA, I am not the slightest bit interested in yoga and skipped over those parts. But the other sections were worth reading -- especially the parts about her eating disorder! Before she got the implants, I always admired and envied Mariel's figure, especially the way she looked in Personal Best, and had assumed that she was just naturally athletic. I suppose I shouldn't have been shocked to learn that, like so many celebrities, she had to starve and endanger her health to look like that. And the stuff about her mixed-up family was very interesting, too -- though sad. I also enjoyed the stuff about Woody Allen.
