HYSTERICAL: Anna Freud’s Story
The fact-based, fictional autobiography of Sigmund Freud’s smartest daughter.
A brilliant, haunting work of literary and historical fiction, Hysterical: Anna Freud’s Story reimagines the extraordinary—and often overlooked—life of Anna Freud, the youngest daughter of Sigmund Freud.
Imagine growing up smart, ambitious, and queer in a home where your father believes women should aspire to be wives and insists that lesbianism is both pathological and curable—especially by him. Then imagine that this same father insists on analyzing you, probing your dreams and desires while dismissing your autonomy.
And imagine, further, that this household—celebrated as the birthplace of psychoanalysis—is thick with secrets: emotional cruelty, medical addictions, buried scandals, shifting loyalties, and a level of manipulation that even today’s psychoanalysts prefer not to discuss. These are the unspoken truths Anna inherited.
Ultimately, Anna loved Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, heir to the Tiffany fortune, for 54 years. Together they raised a family and helped build the modern field of child psychology. But before that, Anna had to navigate childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood inside a famous family where her romantic longings were considered dangerous—and where truth itself was often bent to serve her father’s theories.
“Completely absorbing. A treasure.” — Jeffrey Mouseaieff Masson, former Research Director, the Sigmund Freud Archives.
- What was it really like to grow up the lesbian daughter of “the great Sigmund Freud”?
- What were the Freud family’s most closely guarded skeletons?
- What shadows lie behind the creation of psychoanalysis—shadows that later generations of analysts would prefer remain hidden?
- And how did Anna find the strength to defy her father so thoroughly while continuing to love him, study under him, and ultimately surpass him?
“As funny and occasionally frightening as the title hints.”
— Ms. Magazine Blog
Hysterical weaves a grand tale from a pile of astonishing and unsettling facts, allowing Anna Freud to freely examine the pressures, betrayals, and fierce attachments that shaped her life.
Moving, sharply observed, and deeply feminist, Hysterical will resonate with readers of literary historical fiction, biographical fiction, women’s fiction, queer history, and stories about psychology, early 20th-century Europe, and complex family dynamics. It is a compelling narrative about power, identity, survival, and the hidden histories of women whose lives shaped modern thought.
Perfect for readers of Maggie O’Farrell, Paula McLain, and Geraldine Brooks.
Hysterical: Anna Freud’s Story By Rebecca Coffey
Beck & Branch Publishers 2025. (She Writes Press, 2014.)
EAN: 978-1-938314-42-1 Trim : 5.5 x 8.5
Format : Paperback Pages : 360
BISAC Code – Category: FIC041000 – Fiction/Biographical
FIC025000 – Fiction/Psychological