Bettyville: A Memoir

I cannot add anything that has not already been said about the wonders of this story and the joy of reading it, but I wanted to add my 2 cents and 5 stars anyway. I am nearly finished but wish I had longer with George & Betty. I have found it both funny and tender. I have cried a few times when I was moved by the tenderness of it or at the ache of things not said (or, SAID). It's such a touching story, so richly told. So very grateful to George Hodgman for writing this. I have never written a book review before (and I read a lot of books). But I felt compelled to with Bettyville. I want to shout from the Mountaintop GET THEE TO BETTYVILLE! I won't forget George or Betty. Thank you for sharing yourselves with us, George.

The intersection of the author's description of trying to find himself as a middle-aged gay man while trying to seal his relationship with his dying mother is one that all middle aged people can relate to. It is perhaps for many of us the first time that we are to recognize our parents for the faulty and interesting human beings that they are. The book captures this in a page-turning way. Recommended!

I loved this book even though it was almost excruciating at times concerning George's feelings and experiences as they related to his lifestyle. No one wants to be born this way. So, it was sad at times. The humor was GREAT! George was a wonderful son.

George captures the mother - son interactions beautifully, with a great ear for dialogue. This was funny, and very sad. A friend said that it was like reading two stories -- that of George and his coming out, and Betty and her going in.

I LOVE this book! I devoured it the first reading, then savored it the second time through. It has so many layers that you continually discover new emotions while reading. It is poignant, hilarious, at times sad, and so very heartwarming. I laughed out loud many times while reading, something I rarely do, even when a book is funny. I love, love, love this book and have purchased several copies for friends and family I thought would enjoy it as much as I did.

So glad I bought this wonderful book. Thank you George Hodgman for this down to earth look at the reality of caring for a beloved family member with dementia. The job of caregiver is fraught with pain, joy, distraction beyond compare. But it is what we do for someone we love until the end.

Sad, insightful and provocative. He was a wounded child turned wounded man and was forgiving of everyone but himself. Growing up homosexual in Missouri 50 years ago took its toll. Read this with compassion and hope for the future.

Bettyville was a good book...it was sad insightful and sad. If you have lost a parent to old age or a debilitating illness it will break your heart. George is a sweet man and his mother and father tough Missouri folk. Ihope George has a good life after his mothers passing because I found myself really liking him and I wanted him to be happy. A beautiful memoir with laugh out loud moments . Thank you for sharing, George. I don't think your broke I think your great!

Beth Kozan

I bought this book because I heard an interview with the author on NPR. He spoke of returning to his childhood home town and of the church and the people. He spoke of community.

But what I experienced from reading the book was a universality of growing up alone. Of feeling "not quite right." The poignancy of his declining mother and the sparceness of their relating to each other blends with the decline of Small Town America in a way I relate to.

This was an unexpectedly powerful book. A week ago, a friend asked what I was reading and I told her that I finally succumbed to Bettyville and that the author was wickedly funny. Over the next few readings I was drawn into this soul-searching memoir of how irony can be a barrier as much as withdrawal and avoidance. It was painful to realize that while I prize cleverness between friends, there are few that I (or they) allow between the cracks in the wall. A really brilliant read, and a soul searcher!

Tears for so many unexposed emotions and moments in my own life have somehow uncontrollably escaped when reading the ending of this amazing book. I saw the interview of George and Betty on my favorite tv show, CBS Sunday Morning, and downloaded it to my Kindle the same day. I began reading it that afternoon and finished it the next morning. Thank you George, for sharing with us your mother's final adventures. You must know now how deeply your parents loved you. Justifiably so.

George Hodgman's honest portrayal of what it's like to care for an elderly parent with memory issues is spot on. I know I did it myself until my father's death.

This author's humor, (and his mother Betty's) shines throughout the book. I have recommended Bettyville to so many people. I can't wait till his next effort comes out. Hurry up George!

I downloaded a sample of this book because of the picture on the cover (I love the flowered wall paper) and by the time I finished the second paragraph I purchased the book. The writing rather than the subject drew me in. It's surprising, crisp and funny and it conveys the complexities of families without sentimentality or finger-pointing.

A really interesting book, not the standard fare. You can really identify with this single fellow trying to take care of an independent and somewhat, make that very stubborn mother. Humorous in parts, sad in others. The author did a good job making this topic very pertinent to what a lot of folks will be facing with elderly relatives.

Bettyville: A Memoir made me laugh out loud. A poignantly insightful glimpse into the complex life of a mother and son. Hodgman's humor is used as a veil to hide his insecurities and his memoir reflects the range of emotion that sons and daughters carry towards their parents. His mother, a formerly strong, decisive woman who lives in a black and white world, has aged into a frail version of herself who relies on her son to care for her and Hodgman, often lost in life, gives up everything to do just that, even though mother and son tiptoe around their secrets; her past and his present. I recommend this book.

In sharing his memories of his time as a caregiver for his mother as well as some of his growing up years I realized how similar our experiences were. You care for an aging parent because of love, obligation, gratitude and much more. But with all that comes resentment, frustration, stress and much more... But we all experience the gamut of emotions...and pray for patience, strength and understanding.

A truly moving story of George's journey with his mother, Betty, through her declining mental and physical health. Funny and sad, with an incredibly insightful look at the author's struggle with drugs and coming out, etc.

Sad and heartwarming memoir of a man caring for his elderly mother suffering the onset of dementia. He says "Every day it becomes more apparent to me, and I think to her--a woman who still calls the refrigerator an"icebox"--that her world is gone and she is standing almost by herself now, the only one who remembers how it was here, wondering half the time what it is people are talking about. She lives in a foreign land where it is up to me to try to make her feel at home." It's a wonderful tribute to small town life and love of family.

A memoir that combines the degeneration of a beloved mother caused by the ravages of extreme age and the parallel degeneration of her gay son caused by repressed emotion and drug addiction. The irony of their joint fragility is relieved by George"s unrelenting humor and understanding. This is a memoir that invokes the horror of aids, the intense shame of coming out even in the recent past as well as the love of the writer for his parents because of their strengths and inspite of their failings

A friend of mine recommended this book- and said it was one of the best books she has ever read. I agree. Maybe it's because I'm going thru of the same issues with my elderly parents. The author's voice was so real, clear and touching. He clearly loved his mother, and in caring for her learned how to love himself.

This is a beautifully written, compelling book. The author offers us an intimate, no-holds barred picture of his emotional life and his ties with his mother, in the past and today. He was willing to write candidly about himself and I admire him for it. The way he loves his mother through everything is a wonderful example to us all who have had to or will be caregivers for our older parents.

....unconventional' southern. It is a journey layered into an incredible expose'.
This memoir is witty and wise. It is heartfelt and heart wrenching and reads more like a novel than a memoir.
It is the best and worst of small town America.
This is a story of growing up and growing old or vice versa. The 'silences' of either are 'deafening' and telling.
More than anything, this book is about the power of love.
I 'got' this memoir and I embraced it. In my mind, this is a 'baby boomer' classic.

I really enjoyed this book. It was not really funny to me but very raw in it's emotions. As the author deals with his own struggles as well as his mother's struggles with aging, he gets to the real core of issues in caregiving, for ourselves and others. I would highly recommend this book.

This beautiful book, humorous and poignant, could not have arrived at a more perfect point in my life. My mother is aging and things are changing at a rapid pace. Fear, anger and duty are emotions that I now wrestle with, and George Hodgman's memoir has given me permission to have all of those feelings. This book was the perfect encouragement and boost that I was needing. If you have, or have had an aging parent, read this book. Now.

Interesting memoir; very relevant to people like me who was part of the 80's and the AIDS era that came in. Additionally, my mother had dementia and there was a lot of familiarity there. Also interesting to see how gay people were viewed in the 80's and how different those views were in different parts of the country. Read the book for my book club and one of the members lived in St. Louis for several years in the 80's and didn't think that AIDS existed in Missouri until she came back to New York.

Hodgman penned a very moving and frequently hilarious account of his own life and his mother's slow decline. It's so genuine. There's something for everyone in his well-crafted memoir. Most of all, Bettyville is a love story.

What a wonderful way to honor the journey a mother and son take together. The descriptions of living with someone affected by dementia are spot on accurate as I imagine the descriptions of a gay man repositioned in central Missouri are. The author paints a picture so complete you feel like you are living with them in Paris, MO. There are many laugh out loud moments, maybe because I'm from Missouri but ended the book in tears. It is an interesting and easy read and will bring recognition and understanding to those caring for a loved one affected by dementia. Thank you for sharing your Betty with us.

A very personal story about growing up in Paris, Missouri--small town America. It tells the story of a gay man growing up in that atmosphere, a painful experience, but at the same time, the author demonstrates compassion and love for his elderly mother as he struggles to care for her. I loved this book.

I loved the book, it is beautiful, poignant and insightful. it is a journey, not a trip......we travel the road but never reach a destination. Which is great because Betty is still alive at the end, but, in the more literary sense, it would have been nice to have a beginning, middle and end, but it is a memoir and how can one recommend a crisis or epiphany in a personal story?

mr. Hodgman is an interesting man whose words resonnate long after you put his book down. I am not gay, and although I have gay friends and family members, I was happy to have his personal insights because they both agree and disagree with the media's perception of gay men. It is a very personal book that deals with a loving family and the difficulties of being gay and having a gay family member.

The current perception by the media is that if you are not ecstatic that your child/cousin/whomever is gay, then you are a bigot and a jerk. I think that while Bettyville is about a man and his mom, it is more interestingly and importantly, a nuanced look at being gay within a loving family...not the dramatic, dysfunctional crazy cruel, angry families on t.v. and he does not hate his parents for not understanding him. As a mom, I am grateful to be given a break because while we love our children, we do not always interpret them correctly. But we try, Betty and his father never gave him reason to doubt their love, that is probably why he can love so deeply now.

It helps those who love our gay family members understand more and feel less guilty for not understanding on our own. After all, how can we without knowledge? mr. Hodgman's honesty is a gift to us. It opens doors for discussion, it is insightful and it does not terrify those who are trying very hard to understand our beloved family members or friends but we are too afraid to ask questions or discuss things..in fact his book is about NOT discussing things!

Accepting is not the same as understanding and I am grateful that Mr. Hodgman understands this and is kind to we, the confused.

He is tender and loving in his memories of both parents and I just think that this book should be read by almost everyone. God judges, we should not, in this case, but it is very nice to have someone take us by the hand and share his family and personal struggles, thereby helping us all become better human beings.

P.s. I loved that the roses were not going to die on his watch!

I also liked his insights into rural America. We have had so much trauma and difficulty in our rural communities but it is seldom in the media. I hope that this book is a best seller if only for his narrative about the tragedy of losing our farms and small towns, communities.

America has changed and mr, Hodgman is kindly holding our hand and helping us understand how to deal with it as he is learning too. Bettyville is beautiful, tender and insightful on many levels and topics.

This is a beautifully written memoir. It is funny and touching and it was of great help to me as I face similar issues in my life with an older loved one. I particularly loved how George Hodgman tells the story of his recent return to Paris, Missouri as a fiftysomething gay man in order to care for his ninetysomething mother, and then keeps bringing the story back to the past, and ends up telling the tale of a place (actually two places - Missouri and New York) and a family (specifically a mother and son) against the backdrop of 20th and 21st century America.

This book is brilliant, sad, funny, and , as a retired teacher, a book every teacher should read. You will understand your students as you never have. George Hodgman revealed so much of himself as he comes home to be a caregiver to his mother.

Wonderful! This was undoubtedly a difficult story to tell, but Mr. Hodgman managed to pull us into the life he shares with his mother so well that I feel I know both of them. He moved back and forth easily with stories from his childhood as a young boy not understanding how to fit in, to his adult life as an editor in New York and a young gay man in the early years of AIDS, to his later years back home in a small town in Missouri with his failing mother. In short, a very funny yet poignant book, and a great summer read.

It is a relationship between a gay unemployed man and his aging mother. This story is bitter sweet, sad but also funny Deals beautifully with the aging process and the loss of control, which is manifested in the mothers anger and denial . Her son lives in New York and needs to get back to his own life. Realiizing thst his mother can no longer take care of herself he makes the hard decision to place her in a nursing facility. Aside from this, the book deals with the intersting dynamic between the mother and son who has never completely come to grips with her only child being gay. This story is beautifully written.

This is a tender and heartbreaking story about a gay man and his relationship (or lack thereof) with his mother and father, told when the father has already died and the son is taking care of his mother, who suffers from dementia. Sad yet comedic encounters, exasperating interactions, and wordless expressions of love mostly from the son to the mother are put into context as he traces his parents' inability to discuss or acknowledge his gayness or to show him love when he most needed their support. It's a beautifully written story, especially ripe with memories for those of us who lived through the 80's and 90's. I highly recommend it, and would love to know how gay young adults today react to its telling.

Loved Betty herself and loved the trials and adventures that George Hodgman had back home with his mom. Few people make a commitment to devote their total time to a parent during their final years; I admire him greatly. Aside from that, he's a fantastic writer and brought the experience completely alive for me. Loved it.

Very honest account of the joys and difficulties caring for his elderly mom. His ability to care for her despite his self doubt, mixed with his hilarious sense of humor was so inspiring. A must read for those of us with aging parents!

Having had experiences similar to those of the author, and having grown up in the 50s-70s, I found this to be a wonderful memoir -- funny, touching and very observant. I was extremely moved by the tenderness he shows his parents even when they don't quite understand him, or perhaps don't quite know how to understand. It's on the short list of the best "gay" memoirs, on par with the emotional impact of "Becoming a Man." This is a book to cherish.

This book helped me understand, after they were gone, the fears and losses, faced by my Mom as she confronted the disabling effects of my father's stroke and her own illness and death. Like Betty, she wanted to do things right. And like Betty, she did. This is a terrific book, a generous book, and one to hold near when our own time comes.

I remember what prompted me to purchase this book but I am so happy I did . I found it fascinating , illuminating and heart warming. The author writes in such a way that you feel as though you are there. I actually purchased it audible and I truly enjoyed it.

I loved this book - beautifully written, poignant, funny and touching. The author recounts his life as a gay man growing up in Missouri in the 60's and 70's and his close, yet dysfunctional relationship with his parents - but I think it's a story that is relatable to anyone who didn't quite fit in with the norm. His relationship with his elderly mother "Betty" who is suffering from the early stages of dementia is at the core of the story.

Very well written, this is an important book for those of us who have, or have had an aging parent. It is about more than that though, it is also about his lifelong relationship with his parents, and I found it very easy to relate to his story. I was afraid this was going to be a very sad book, but I found it to be a wonderful story of a mother and son's love for each other

George Hodgman wrote a compelling story about dealing with end-of-life issues for adult children with aging parents. Intermingled with aging issues were unresolved identity issues that he and Betty had never addressed. Both stories, while poignant, were interspersed with great humor. Great read!