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Bettyville: A Memoir
Author:
Hodgman, George
Biographee:
Hodgman, George
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Class:
Biography
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: HQ1063.6
Print Run: 40000
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ISBN-13: 9780525427209
LCCN: 2014038536
Imprint: Viking
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Pub Date: 03/10/2015
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $27.95
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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278 pages ; 22 cm
H 8.5",
W 5.81",
D 0.94",
0.8875 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
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Bibliographies:
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New York Times Bestsellers List
New York Times Bestsellers: Adult Nonfiction
Over the Rainbow List
Public Library Core Collection: Nonfiction, 16th ed.
Public Library Core Collection: Nonfiction, 17th ed.
Publishers Weekly Bestsellers
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Awards:
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Library Journal Best Books
Library Journal Starred Reviews
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Starred Reviews:
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Library Journal
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TIPS Subjects:
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Family Life
Aging
LGBTQ+
Biography, Individual
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BISAC Subjects: |
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Editors, Journalists, Publishers
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / LGBTQ+
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Eldercare
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LC Subjects:
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Adult children of aging parents, United States, Biography
Aging parents, Care, United States
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Editors, Journalists, Publishers
Caregivers, United States, Biography
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Eldercare
Gay men, Family relationships, United States
Hodgman, George
Mothers and sons, United States
Sons, Family relationships, United States
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SEARS Subjects: |
Aging parents, Care, United States
Caregivers, United States, Biography
Family life, United States
Gay men, United States
Hodgman, George
Hodgman, George, Family
Mother-son relationship
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Reading Programs: |
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| Annotations |
| Publisher Annotations | 06/23/2014 |
| When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself-an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook-in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure-the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict: Betty, who speaks her mind but cannot quite reveal her heart, has never really accepted the fact that her son is gay. As these two unforgettable characters try to bring their different worlds together, Hodgman reveals the challenges of Betty's life and his own struggle for self-respect, moving readers from their small town-crumbling but still colorful-to the star-studded corridors of Vanity Fair. Evocative of 'The End of Your Life Book Club' and 'The Tender Bar,' Hodgman's debut is both an indelible portrait of a family and an exquisitely told tale of a prodigal son's return. |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Library Journal | 06/01/2015 |
| This superior memoir, written in a witty and episodic style, is at times heartbreaking. It's also, though just under 300 pages, an especially dense one, filled with a lifetime's worth of reflection and story after fascinating story. Starting out rather conventionally as the tale of a son's return home to rural Paris, MO, to take care of his ailing mother, Betty, the narrative slowly begins to delve into Hodgman's difficulties with self-acceptance, particularly as a gay man. While his relationship with his mother is a close one, it quickly becomes clear that his sexual orientation is chief among the many things that he and his family don't discuss. Hodgman beautifully details how much rural America has changed in the last 30 years, though not always for the better. VERDICT Readers from many backgrounds will identify with Hodgman, as he essentially presents a plea to accept everybody for who they are, no matter what their story may be, or what kinds of lives they may lead. [See Memoir, 1/21/15; ow.ly/MBE7M.]--DS. Derek Sanderson. 277p. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2015. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| BookPage | 03/01/2015 |
| George Hodgman had defined himself by his work as an editor in New York City. Newly out of a job, he returns home to small-town Paris, Missouri, and discovers that his mother, Betty, is in need of full-time care. Their affection and shared humor dance around the unspoken; Hodgman is gay, a fact his parents never acknowledged. In Bettyville, Hodgman writes with wit and empathy about all the loss he's confronted with. Betty's poor health is mirrored by the failure of towns like Paris, whose farms and lumberyards are now Walmarts and meth labs. Coming out in the age of AIDS, he lost the people he was close to when he had nowhere else to turn. His commitment to "see someone through. All the way home," is medicine for his own soul as much as his mother's. That doesn't mean Bettyville is without humor--far from it. Paris eccentrics (one woman shampoos her hair in the soda fountain) compete with Hodgman's colleagues in the office of Vanity Fair. The stresses of eldercare take their toll as well: "Monitored by graph, my emotions would resemble a chart of a frenetic third world economy." This is a portrait of a woman in decline, but still very much alive and committed to getting the lion's share of mini-Snickers at every opportunity. When things are left unsaid between parents and children, it leaves a hurt that can never be completely repaired, but love and dedication can make those scarred places into works of art. Bettyville is one such masterpiece. Heather Seggel. 288p. BOOKPAGE, c2015. |
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| Booklist | 02/01/2015 |
| Hodgman's mother, Betty, is fading, physically and mentally (she's in her nineties and lives alone, in the family home in Paris, Missouri). A single freelance book editor in NYC, Hodgman finds it easy to take his work and head home to be a caregiver. Once he arrives, however, he discovers nothing is easy--not helping his mother navigate dressing, cooking, and a disappearing memory; not facing his past as a gay child and young adult in a small town; not deciphering love, parental and otherwise. The book is instantly engaging, as Hodgman has a wry sense of humor, one he uses to keep others at a distance. Yet the book is also devastatingly touching. Betty is one tough cookie, and she is crumbling. Hodgman as a young man came out around the same time AIDS did, complicating his already complicated feelings immeasurably. There's a lot for Hodgman to handle, yet he does, despite the urge to give in to his own sadness and his own former drug addiction. A tender, resolute look at a place, literal and figurative, baby boomers might find themselves. Kinney, Eloise. 288p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2015. |
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| Kirkus Reviews | 12/15/2014 |
| A gay magazine editor and writer's account of how he returned home to the Midwest from New York to care for his aging mother.Hodgman never dreamed he would return home to Paris, Missouri, to become his 90-year-old mother Betty's "care inflictor." But the lonely life he led in New York City, "lingering between the white spaces of copy, trying to get the work perfect," had soured; more than that, he was now unemployed. And Betty, who refused to enter an assisted living facility, could not continue living alone. Hodgman watched his mother confront her increasing confusion and physical fragility with dread. Inevitably, they bickered and fussed, but the author knew that Betty represented the home he was never able to establish for himself, just as Betty knew her son was her only steady source of support. Confronted on a daily basis with reminders of his past, Hodgman reviewed his life with both parents. Betty and his father could never quite accept that he was gay, and they were content with their lives and the simplicity of Paris. It was the author who was never happy with who he was and who felt a perpetual need to make up for being different by trying to do better. That struggle would lead him to a high-status, high-pressure job at Vanity Fair. But at what should have been the pinnacle of his career, he gave his life over to drugs and the Fire Island gay party scene. Hodgman's recovery--not just from substance abuse, but also from old patterns of emotional disconnection--would take years. But when he returned to Paris, it was with a greater acceptance of who he was: not the son Betty might have wanted or expected, but the son who would see her through the "strange days" of her final years of life. Movingly honest, at times droll, and ultimately poignant. 288pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2014. |
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| Library Journal Prepub Alert | 09/22/2014 |
| I hear good things about this memoir from practiced magazine and book editor Hodgman, who abandoned Manhattan for his hometown, Paris, MO, to care for his ailing mother, Betty. Betty is tough, sharp-tongued, opinionated, determined to avoid assisted living, and unable to acknowledge that she's never accepted her son's being gay. A dual portrait of big-town publishing and small-town wistfulness and of two very different people, with horns locked yet deeply linked. Barbara Hoffert. 288p. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2014. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 02/09/2015 |
| Hodgman's memoir chronicles his return home to care for his mother in the small Missouri town where he grew up. His relocation provides the veteran book editor and writer an opportunity for re-evaluating his life while assuming care of Betty, his ailing, widowed, and willful 90-year-old mother. Hodgman's narrative alternates between describing the joys and stresses of his daily caretaking tasks, giving close analysis of his life growing up gay in a smalltown. Hodgman also chronicles his long struggle to understand and become comfortable in his own skin, ruminating over the decades his family muffled discussion of his sexuality. Hodgman attended college, then moved to New York at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, which greatly affected his view of the world. As Betty's health declines, Hodgman is buoyed by the friendships and familiarities provided by smalltown life. Hodgman includes a cast of characters from his hometown, as well as people he encountered professionally and romantically in New York. The author's continuous low-key humor infuses the memoir with refreshing levity, without diminishing the emotional toll of being the sole health-care provider to an elderly parent. This is an emotionally honest portrayal of a son's secrets and his unending devotion to his mother. (Mar.). 288p. Web-Exclusive Review. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2015. |
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9780525427209,dl.it[0].title
| Review Citations |
| New York Times Book Review | 06/21/2015 |
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