Miss Betsey: A Memoir of Marriage

by Eugene D. Genovese

When in 2003, President Bush bestowed a National Humanities Medal on Elizabeth (Betsey) Fox-Genovese, citing her as 'a defender of reason and servant of faith', he recognized the achievements of a uniquely accomplished American intellectual. Long a Marxist and briefly a feminist, Betsey converted to Catholicism in 1994 and became an exceptionally strong voice for the culture of life and the rights of the unborn. A Harvard-trained historian and acclaimed teacher, she wrote extensively on literature, religion, politics, education, and related subjects. Her numerous books and articles on French history, the American South, and women's history, literature, and politics provoked extensive discussion, winning her an appreciative national audience - and subjecting her to bitter and increasingly vicious hostility. When she died in January 2007 at age sixty-five, she was Eleanore Raoul Professor of the Humanities at Emory University, where she had founded the Women's Studies Program and trained a record number of Ph.D.s in several departments. In "Miss Betsey", Eugene Genovese - Betsey's husband of thirty-seven years and an equally accomplished scholar - movingly tells the story of their courtship, life together, and professional and political collaboration. Betsey is shown to have been a woman of uncommon strength of character who refused to feel sorry for herself in the face of lifelong illnesses. Even in her last dozen years, crippled and wracked by constant pain, she devoted herself to her husband, students, many friends - and God. Eugene Genovese confesses that 'time does not heal all things', but he also affirms that it was on the day of his 'improbable blind date' with Elizabeth Fox that 'the Holy Ghost pronounced my sinful soul worth saving'.

Genres: Biography, History

200 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2008

About the author

Eugene Dominic Genovese was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He has been noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and slaves in the South. His work Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made won the Bancroft Prize. He later abandoned the Left and Marxism, and embraced traditionalist conservatism.

Reviews

[Jeannette · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only regret after reading this is that I never met her.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though this is Genovese's perspective of his beloved wife, Betsy sounds like a pretty remarkable woman.

[Marjorie Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, one-sitting read. It is a tale of love, politics, romance, academic intrigue and rivalries, religious conversion and, ultimately, a profound and crisp anecdote of marital love and commitment. I loved this book and savored its short, lively tale - I dare you to read it and not cry . . . the tears of loss and joy and romance and partnership. The author has followed his beloved to eternal life - but not until he got this memoir to the printers.

[Michael Paone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eugene Genovese was an interesting guy. So interesting that I am focusing part of my Master’s thesis on him. As he acknowledges in this book, he burned his personal papers and letters, so sources are hard to find and in (sometimes) inaccessible university archives. So, this book will prove useful at least in outline a basic biographical sketch, while also dropping some juicy tidbits for me to investigate (who was the “favorite of the far left” @ Rochester that was going through his papers?). While I am not so much interested in his relationship with his wife, Genovese would probably chide me for ignoring what was clearly just as important to him, if not much more so, than his scholarship. This book is a touching, 100 page tribute about his wife who was also a tremendous scholar. Genovese’s personality, (we get it, you’re Italian) good and bad shines through. I can only hope to have a love like they did.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have to agree with everything a writer says and believes. This is one of those cases--I enjoyed the book and felt I learned something from it, and intelligent discussion of a viewpoint that isn't my own is something I truly do appreciate. There is all the more to learn from it because I don't fully agree with everything he says, but there are plenty of points on which I do, too. It's a touching look at how the author viewed his wife, with some humor despite the rather melancholy background--he wrote the book after her death. It's an interesting look at their lives in academia, too, and fascinating in the way memoirs often are--a glimpse at someone else's lived experience, at their thoughts and impressions and reasons for viewing the world the way they did.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historian Eugene Genovese (1930-2012) produced through this literal labor of love a fine appreciation of his wife, the equally respected historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (1941-2007). Eugene Genovese was a first-rate stylist even when he was a Marxist (no small accomplishment), and this short book is both well crafted and as revealing of the author as it is of its subject. One might have hoped for more elucidation about the stages through which husband and wife transferred their allegiance from Marxism to Catholicism—Betsey seemingly in the lead on all fronts. But perhaps this book is best approached as simply the cri de cœur of a grieving husband.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting perspective. I appreciated that intellectual rigor seemed to be a core of their marriage.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no doubt that in order to fully appreciate this book, you had to spend some time in the Genovese household. I was traveling when Betsey died, so could not attend the funeral. I had plans (and plane tickets) to get to Atlanta for her memorial service at Emory University, but my grandmother died that week and her funeral fell on the same day. I have put of writing to Gene ever since, because I simply could not find the words. In this book written for all of us who knew Betsey, he reached out to me (although his intention could not have been quite that personal). As I read Gene's words and his remembrances of Betsey's, once again I was in their living room or around a table at Nino's.

[Amy Young]

Learned of this from a CT review