Readers of MEN HAVE CALLED HER CRAZY likely will fall into two camps: those who know who Anna Marie Tendler is, largely because of her very public divorce from comedian John Mulaney, and those who aren't familiar with her and want to read an introspective memoir with a thought-provoking title about mental health.

Those who are aware of Tendler’s contentious divorce will be disappointed that Mulaney’s name is never even mentioned (almost assuredly due to non-disclosure agreements), and even the end of her marriage is only brought up a handful of times. However, I will concede that the powers that be behind this book have been very clear from the outset, even as far back as the announcement of its publication, that in no way will it be a salacious tell-all of Tendler's marriage and divorce. Without that context, though, some of what follows is difficult to relate to. Those who just want a memoir about mental health might be completely satisfied with her account of past loves and her time in the hospital.

In the midst of the pandemic, in January 2021, Tendler checks herself into a psychiatric hospital for a week-long stay. At 35, her marriage has ended. She has reverted to cutting, a practice that began in her early teens, as well as suffering from depression, increased anxiety and disordered eating (although this last issue is never discussed again). Given what the public at large knows about what she went through, who could blame her? But those who don’t know might think, “Huh? Rich people problems.”

"Tendler’s honesty about herself and her mental health struggles is very relatable.... While MEN HAVE CALLED HER CRAZY might be polarizing, Tendler is discussing important topics and attempting to resolve her choices when it comes to men."

Tendler specifically requests an all-female dorm, since she “thought it would save me from interacting with men.” As she frequently mentions, she “hates men.” The other three or four women in the dorm are doing drug/alcohol rehabilitation. It takes her some time to come out of her shell as she is “becoming increasingly anxious [that] the other girls might not like me because I’m quiet. This has been a theme my whole life. I have been anti-social since puberty, preferring to watch others rather than participate.” (Sometimes in memoirs, authors show more of their cards than they think.)

Even if readers have no prior knowledge of Tendler, it’s very clear that she lives a rarified existence: “Each piece of furniture I own is an antique carefully chosen from a dealer or rehomed from my grandparents’ house. There is no overhead lighting in most of the living spaces, as was custom in old houses. Instead, low, warm light glows from sconces and lamps, many of which I made. I took inspiration from the Aesthetic and Arts & Crafts movements of the nineteenth century…. Settees are plentiful.” (That point is brought up frequently.) And she offhandedly will mention that she works from her dining room that has “thirty foot ceilings.” So certain details like these might make it hard for some to connect with her.

However, Tendler’s honesty about herself and her mental health struggles is very relatable. During the pandemic, who among us wasn’t struggling with rising anxiety and sadness? The book is structured in alternating chapters --- her time in the hospital and her past/present relationships with men. From a very young age, Tendler has gravitated to the arts. She first was attracted to dance, but when she realized at 13 that she “wasn’t good enough to be a professional,” she looked to other artistic pursuits. Acting, crafting, make-up/hair, photography --- all of these held her interest at some point, if only for a short time.

At 17, Tendler dated a musician who was almost 30, even living with him in L.A. for two years when her parents assumed she was living in a dorm and going to school. (At this point, she was taking a cosmetology course at Vidal Sassoon.) When that ended, she became involved with that musician’s friend. In her early 20s and back in New York, she dated the 26-year-old head of a recently acquired comedy website, which brought her into even more rarefied circles. She traveled to Japan and accompanied him to his Hamptons rental in the summer; he even paid for a haircutting course for her.

One day, Tendler saw an email on his laptop from a female friend who told Comedy Guy that Tendler was just using him and would leave him “broke and alone.” When she brought this to his attention, he shrugged it off. When they eventually broke up, in an effort to show she wasn’t a gold digger, she offered to pay him back for half of the hair-cutting course, which he readily accepted. So she continued to cut his and his staff’s hair as a means of repayment.

Through this relationship, Tendler learned that “[t]he power wealth engenders is not always overt, it can be wrapped in a facade of generosity…. Having money (power) means you get to make a lot of the decisions that other people with less money (less power) simply have to go along with…” But readers will want to go back in time and tell her, “But you don’t have to date rich jerks!” It almost seems that in her search for an artistic pursuit, she became content to date wealthy, artistic men as a means to fill that void.

After a disastrous final meeting with her doctors at the hospital and her problematic personal therapist, with whom she thankfully ends her association, Tendler decides to extend her stay for three more days. With the doctors’ help, she tries to use her new therapy tools to look at her life and choices more objectively: “Years of my own experiences with men have taught me they struggle to see women as autonomous creatures with complicated, interesting, rich inner lives. Usually, they see us only in relation to themselves. How can a person with such limited scope of another objectively analyze them?” But her relationships post-hospital beg the question: Is she really resigned to living her life through the prism of a man? Has she really learned life lessons from her past mistakes?

While MEN HAVE CALLED HER CRAZY might be polarizing, Tendler is discussing important topics and attempting to resolve her choices when it comes to men. This well-written account of a tumultuous time in Tendler’s life might have benefited from having a little more time and distance from the traumatic events of the early 2020s, giving her a better understanding and perspective of what she experienced.