George Hodgman's Blog, page 8
March 27, 2015
A Writer Moves To 'Bettyville' To Care For His Elderly Mo...
A Writer Moves To 'Bettyville' To Care For His Elderly Mom
www.npr.org
In 2011, George Hodgman visited his mother Betty for her 91st birthday in Paris, Missouri. When he saw she needed care, he left Manhattan to live with her. But she still hasn't accepted that he's gay.
GEORGE: "I'm giving a book reading. It's sort of a tribute. I'm going to make it...
GEORGE: "I'm giving a book reading. It's sort of a tribute. I'm going to make it all about you."
BETTY: "Well that's a helluva subject."
BETTY: "Well that's a helluva subject."
March 26, 2015
Saturday, Columbia, say hi. Betty's going to be there. Watch out.
Saturday, Columbia, say hi. Betty's going to be there. Watch out.
March 25, 2015
Here I am in Dayton, a town where I never expected to find myself, but there is...
Here I am in Dayton, a town where I never expected to find myself, but there is very happy news: Bettyville is #10 on New York Times bestseller list this week, down one spot from nine. This is good news and, once again, I credit you, you madcap booksellers. XO.
Think I may have made a tiny faux pas with my publishing house, but is it so wro...
Think I may have made a tiny faux pas with my publishing house, but is it so wrong to demand that the bribe the bestseller list people to keep me on the list? Surely there is a teamster for rent somewhere.
March 24, 2015
March 22, 2015
The great, amazing, beautiful gift: All the people you thought would never under...
The great, amazing, beautiful gift: All the people you thought would never understand you who turn out to understand you completely. Overwhelming.
March 21, 2015
Yesterday, I came home after two weeks of traveling to promote Bettyville. More...
Yesterday, I came home after two weeks of traveling to promote Bettyville. More than a hundred miles away, I started getting excited about seeing Betty and Raj, our dog. Last night I slept in my own bed with Raj. While I was away, Carol--our loyal, unfailing friend who makes our lives possible--bought and installed monitors in my mother's room and mine so that I can hear my mom and what she is doing during the night. I fell asleep listening to her breathing and talking to herself a little, repeating things she is trying to make sure she does not forget. For a month now, she has repeated and repeated and repeated the name of the daughter of a lawyer in Columbia, an old friend, who died of cancer. We don't know them all that well, but my mother has been affected by the loss of this young woman, a mother. "Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer," Betty kept repeating as I listened and Raj's tail beat on the mattress. It struck me that Betty wasn't just making an effort to remember Jennifer's name, she was mourning this young woman who she hasn't seen since she was a beautiful little girl at the swimming pool at the Moberly Country Club. In a way, she was saying, I think, a little prayer. For some reason, my mother has taken this loss into her heart and she cannot let it go. That is my mother, that is Betty, sad for weeks about someone else's sadness. In San Francisco, a Chinese lady wheeled her mother into my reading in a wheelchair. "We love Betty," the old woman told me. "I love it in the book when she says her prayers." Thanks to all who came to see me, thanks to Carol Crigler and Lucinda Baker who made it possible for me to go, thanks to all the people who have read the book and shown themselves willing to understand lives unlike their own. It would have been so easy to sit back shocked and judgmental, but you have opened your hearts. Special thanks to my cousins, Dick and Lorine Wallin who drove from Springfield, Illinois to St. Louis to come to my reading. Dick wore a hat and a false mustache (blue) and completely surprised me and Lorine wrote me the loveliest letter that I will keep forever. Thank you for coming to Bettyville.
Best Sellers - The New York Timeswww.nytimes.comBrowse be...
Best Sellers - The New York Times
www.nytimes.com
Browse best seller lists, book reviews & news for authors, fiction & non-fiction, literature, biographies, memoirs, children's books, science fiction & self-help."
March 20, 2015
CHICAGO TRIBUNE:
Paris, Mo., population 1,246 and falling: This is the hometown...
CHICAGO TRIBUNE:
Paris, Mo., population 1,246 and falling: This is the hometown to which George Hodgman returned for his mother Betty's 91st birthday. Two weeks stretched into two months. He thinks about leaving but cannot bring himself to get a flight back to New York.
Hodgman does not make himself seem heroic. "I'm not a martyr," he writes in his new memoir, "Bettyville." "I'm just available, an unemployed editor relegated to working freelance." As he puts it, he stays there, in the house with dusty antiques and dying rosebushes, to become his mother's "care inflictor."
Be not afraid that "Bettyville" is a story about elder care, because Betty Baker Hodgman would never stand for it. Even with dementia and lymphoma, Betty is very much full of life and never tries to be anyone but herself. "'At least I'm out and out with my meanness,'" she tells her son. "'I'm not a sneak. I hate a sneak.'"
Betty isn't really mean, just direct and quick-witted — even if she struggles for words. A real tenderness runs through this poignant memoir, and its comedic qualities and sharp insights prevent it from becoming sappy. (The man at the IGA told George that his mother, "Came in here one day and said she could get fresher produce at an antique store.")
After Betty loses her driver's license — she drove into a ditch — she likes taking to the road with her son, although outings to places like "Waikiki Coiffures" can be an ordeal. "When dealing with older women," writes Hodgman, "a trip to a hairdresser and two Bloody Marys goes further than any prescription drug."
Hodgman has a way of seeing the absurdity of it all. When the lacquered bubble from "Waikiki Coiffures" isn't entirely successful, a downcast Betty claims this is her worst yet, but he notes that she has not had what she considers "a successful hair appointment since around 1945."
While Betty once shooed her son off, she now wants him close. He looks in her face and understands her anguish, aware that she is barely holding on and becoming more anxious, sometimes even terrified. The little things bother her — the misplaced address book, the uncooperative TV remote control or can opener, lost words. "Don't leave me," she says if he goes to bed before she does. Betty and Hodgman's father, who died in 1997, never fully and explicitly accepted that their son was gay.
Betty may be afraid, but she will not speak of her fears. "She keeps her secrets," Hodgman writes. "I keep mine. That is our way. We have always struggled with words." Hodgman renders Betty fully — and on this journey home, learns that he is strong enough to stay the course with her in Paris.
Elizabeth Taylor is the Tribune's literary editor at large
"Bettyville"
By George Hodgman, Viking, 276 pages, $27.95
Paris, Mo., population 1,246 and falling: This is the hometown to which George Hodgman returned for his mother Betty's 91st birthday. Two weeks stretched into two months. He thinks about leaving but cannot bring himself to get a flight back to New York.
Hodgman does not make himself seem heroic. "I'm not a martyr," he writes in his new memoir, "Bettyville." "I'm just available, an unemployed editor relegated to working freelance." As he puts it, he stays there, in the house with dusty antiques and dying rosebushes, to become his mother's "care inflictor."
Be not afraid that "Bettyville" is a story about elder care, because Betty Baker Hodgman would never stand for it. Even with dementia and lymphoma, Betty is very much full of life and never tries to be anyone but herself. "'At least I'm out and out with my meanness,'" she tells her son. "'I'm not a sneak. I hate a sneak.'"
Betty isn't really mean, just direct and quick-witted — even if she struggles for words. A real tenderness runs through this poignant memoir, and its comedic qualities and sharp insights prevent it from becoming sappy. (The man at the IGA told George that his mother, "Came in here one day and said she could get fresher produce at an antique store.")
After Betty loses her driver's license — she drove into a ditch — she likes taking to the road with her son, although outings to places like "Waikiki Coiffures" can be an ordeal. "When dealing with older women," writes Hodgman, "a trip to a hairdresser and two Bloody Marys goes further than any prescription drug."
Hodgman has a way of seeing the absurdity of it all. When the lacquered bubble from "Waikiki Coiffures" isn't entirely successful, a downcast Betty claims this is her worst yet, but he notes that she has not had what she considers "a successful hair appointment since around 1945."
While Betty once shooed her son off, she now wants him close. He looks in her face and understands her anguish, aware that she is barely holding on and becoming more anxious, sometimes even terrified. The little things bother her — the misplaced address book, the uncooperative TV remote control or can opener, lost words. "Don't leave me," she says if he goes to bed before she does. Betty and Hodgman's father, who died in 1997, never fully and explicitly accepted that their son was gay.
Betty may be afraid, but she will not speak of her fears. "She keeps her secrets," Hodgman writes. "I keep mine. That is our way. We have always struggled with words." Hodgman renders Betty fully — and on this journey home, learns that he is strong enough to stay the course with her in Paris.
Elizabeth Taylor is the Tribune's literary editor at large
"Bettyville"
By George Hodgman, Viking, 276 pages, $27.95
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