The Mighty Franks: A Memoir Hardcover – May 16, 2017 by Michael Frank (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

In a memoir, the author's most personal thoughts and recollections are on offer and the result can be very difficult to read. This seems true with Michael Frank's "The Mighty Franks: A Memoir". But what is difficult to read must have been excruciating to actually live through. Frank grew up in Los Angeles in a family so marked by the malevolence of one family member, his aunt Harriet Frank, Jr, whose lifetime of narcissistic behavior terrorised the family for sixty years. Michael Frank doesn't use the word "narcissist" to describe his aunt, but her behavior mimics the narcisstic behavior of several people I know. If you read the book, you may use a different term to describe "Hanky", depending on your experience with such a malevolent person.

Michael Frank's aunt and uncle are real people, who have Wikipedia entries. His uncle, Irving Ravetch, and his aunt, Harriet Frank, Jr,(known as "Hanky") were noted screenwriters in the 1950's to 1980's. They worked primarily with director Martin Ritt. (You should read their Wiki entries before reading the book.) Michael was their nephew - a double nephew, at that, because his mother was Irving Ravetch's sister and his father was Harriet Frank's brother. A cozy combination which made for a cozy family unit, whose members lived a few blocks from each other in the Hollywood hills. To make matters even cozier, the two grandmothers shared an apartment after their respective husbands died. Both couples lived in and out of the other's homes, and the Frank's three sons were thought of a surrogate sons for Irving and Hanky, who had no children. However, the Ravetch's, particularly Hanky, seemed to prefer young Michael to his brothers, and, indeed, to anyone other than her husband. She was the "Auntie Mame" to his Patrick and showered him with gifts and attention. But the attention was that of his place in Hanky's world. She was the sun, he was planet circling. He finally rebelled in his late teens but by then Hanky's malevolence to him and the rest of the family continued unabated.

Michael Frank's memoir begins when he was a child and continued up through Irving's death in 2010 and to Hanky's continued existence. He spares little of the "true" Hanky Ravetch and her wretched influence in his book. It's a fascinating book, as memoirs often are.