What do you think?
Rate this book
Don’t Say Crazy to Me: From the Woman Who Danced with Frank Sinatra
This oftentimes comedic memoir explodes with resilience. Marion Hoffman Koenig kicks aside limitations, embraces magic, and strives to replace loss with kindness. Can death be morphed into life?
This memoir first captures the child’s eye view of death, the magic of a child's experience. This is balanced against growing adult understanding in the tradition of David Copperfield and Jane Eyre. After enduring more than her share of death and sickness as a young girl, Koenig takes the reader on a jam-packed adventure with exciting, dangerous, and sometimes other-worldly experiences of a young woman coming into her own and making her way in 1980s New York City. Encounters with boldface names and world-historical events add a poetic, time-capsule charm to the narrative.
______________________________________
“Marion Koenig could make walking down a flight of stairs intriguing!”
– Ralph Gomory, Winner of the National Medal of Science
This memoir first captures the child’s eye view of death, the magic of a child's experience. This is balanced against growing adult understanding in the tradition of David Copperfield and Jane Eyre. After enduring more than her share of death and sickness as a young girl, Koenig takes the reader on a jam-packed adventure with exciting, dangerous, and sometimes other-worldly experiences of a young woman coming into her own and making her way in 1980s New York City. Encounters with boldface names and world-historical events add a poetic, time-capsule charm to the narrative.
______________________________________
“Marion Koenig could make walking down a flight of stairs intriguing!”
– Ralph Gomory, Winner of the National Medal of Science
326 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 30, 2025
1 person want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 31, 2025
This poetically written memoir completely captured me as the author reveals major losses throughout her young life, as well as crippling family dysfunction and a severely mentally ill brother whom she tried--from age 11 on--to save from multiple suicide attempts.
After a later failed marriage that gifts her with a lovely child, the author's irrepressible spirit leads her to New York, where she serves the legendary Benny Goodman as his Advance Person; to the White House, where she dances with iconic crooner Frank Sinatra; and to the idyllic English countryside, where she creates a joyful oasis for her daughter before embracing a life full of enviable adventures.
DON'T SAY CRAZY TO ME is an elegant, emotional memoir highly recommended for fans of engaging true stories that grip the heart and uplift the spirit. Brava, Marion!
After a later failed marriage that gifts her with a lovely child, the author's irrepressible spirit leads her to New York, where she serves the legendary Benny Goodman as his Advance Person; to the White House, where she dances with iconic crooner Frank Sinatra; and to the idyllic English countryside, where she creates a joyful oasis for her daughter before embracing a life full of enviable adventures.
DON'T SAY CRAZY TO ME is an elegant, emotional memoir highly recommended for fans of engaging true stories that grip the heart and uplift the spirit. Brava, Marion!
Displaying 1 of 1 review