Hysterical: Anna Freud's Story

Imagine growing up the gay daughter of Sigmund Freud, who taught that lesbianism can be a gateway to mental illness. Furthermore, he said that lesbianism is caused by the father and is curable by psychoanalysis.

Now imagine that he analyzes you.

That’s the premise of award-winning science journalist Rebecca Coffey’s fact-based novel, Hysterical: Anna Freud’s Story. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Roundtable of the American Library Association has named Hysterical a 2015 “Over the Rainbow” book. Booklist called Hysterical “avidly researched, shrewd, and unnerving” as well as “complexly entertaining, sexually dramatic, [and] acidly funny.” LAMBDA Literary said it’s got “a plot so rife with tension it’ll make you squirm.” Oprah’s O Magazine recommended it in its June 2014 issue.

Despite any difficulty in her upbringing, Anna Freud grew to be her father’s closest intellectual and emotional companion. After his death, she bore his intellectual seed into the world. Yet as close and loyal as she was to Sigmund, Anna also enjoyed 54 years of happy monogamy with Dorothy Burlingham, heir to the Tiffany fortune. They even raised a family together.

Hysterical: Anna Freud’s Story is a fascinating faux autobiography built on a pile of crazy facts.