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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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BETTYVILLE

George Hodgman

A witty, tender memoir of a son’s journey home to care for his irascible mother—a tale of secrets, silences, and enduring love.
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.

GEORGE HODGMAN is a veteran magazine and book editor who has worked at Simon & Schuster, Vanity Fair, and Talk magazine. His writing has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Interview, W, and Harper’s Bazaar, among other publications. He lives in New York City and Paris, Missouri.
Available products
Book

Published 2015-03-10 by Viking

Book

Published 2015-03-10 by Viking

Comments

Bettyville is a beautifully crafted memoir, rich with humor and wisdom. George Hodgman has created an unforgettable book about mothers and sons, and about the challenges that come with growing older and growing up.

“A most remarkable laugh-out-loud book.....Rarely has the subject of elder care produced such droll human comedy or a heroine quite on the mettlesome order of Betty Baker Hodgman.” Read more...

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. Read more...

In a Small Town, His Mother Was 90 and Failing. He Lived In New York and Was Failing. So He Went Home... Read more...

Bettyville is an exquisitely written memoir about the complicated but deeply genuine love a son feels for his courageous, headstrong, vulnerable mother in the twilight of her life. George Hodgman is stunningly clear-eyed and yet so darned big-hearted. Bettyville is just wonderful.

George Hodgman achieves something stunning with this book—by paying such deep, loving attention to his mother’s (admittedly colorful) life, he offers us the chance to pay close attention to our own strange and beautiful Bettyvilles, which in the end is all we can ask of any art. This bejeweled pillbox is rich and funny and heartwrenching and might just you cure you of your ills; if those ills include loneliness or feeling like you don’t belong—you are not alone.

BETTYVILLE is a beautiful book about the strange plenitude that comes from finally letting go of everything.

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.

The People review: it’s their Book of the Week! Reviewer Kim Hubbard calls it a “lovely memoir” and says “you won’t finish their tale dry-eyed.”

When I read the first few pages of Bettyville, I immediately connected. The detail is poetry and, yes, George Hodgman tells a story that is all our stories if we grow up different, struggling not to hurt those we treasure. But what I will most remember is the human struggle of Betty—the woman at the window, the woman at the piano, the woman whose desire to help others represents the best of small-town America. The silence she was taught and the complications of our parents’ journeys to be there for us, as best they could, is what I will take away from Bettyville, where she will always reside. Hers is the quiet love that outlasts the distances and lets us survive.

George Hodgman’s BETTYVILLE hits the New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller list: #9 Print Hardcover ; #8 E-Book ; #10 Combined It’s also currently #1 and #2 in its Amazon categories! BETTYVILLE stays on the New York Times Bestseller list for a second week! It’s currently #1 in all its Amazon categories (26.3.15)

Movingly honest, at times droll, and ultimately poignant. Read more...

O Magazine April issue features BETTYVILLE as one of the 10 Titles to Pick Up Now.

BETTYVILLE reminded me of some Homeric legend, complete with treacherous chimeras and ravenous gorgons, except that it is told with such grace, wit, and spirited generosity that you hardly sense you are on a fragile bark, adrift on a perilous sea. This story of a sensitive Midwestern boy coming to terms with his homosexuality, his drug addiction, his clueless parents, his all-out war with shame, is nothing short of epic. It begins as a simple trip home from fast-track Manhattan to Paris, Missouri, to care for a failing mother, but by the time we are through, we have descended to an underworld, witnessed a plague, traveled all nine circles of hell, and emerged exhilarated by the grit and valor of our remarkable guide. It is, in every sense, a tale about the power of love.”

[A]uthentic and true…[Hodgman] writes with humour and self-mockery that bring levity to the painful, central subject of “Bettyville”: caring for a parent on the threshold of death. Read more...

A real tenderness runs through this poignant memoir, and its comedic qualities and sharp insights prevent it from becoming sappy. Read more...

This is a superior memoir, written in a witty and episodic style, yet at times it’s heartbreaking...Readers from many backgrounds will be able to identify with the author because his book is really a plea for us to accept everybody for who they are, no matter what their story may be, or what kinds of lives they may lead. Read more...

BETTYVILLE is a gorgeous memoir. I was completely engaged, not just because of George Hodgman’s great ear and his sense of timing and, but because he delivers Betty to us in such a manner that she steps off the page. I felt transported to a better place, to a time period and a web of relationships with which we can all identify, no matter where we grew up. Beyond the humor and the pathos, the quotidian and the bizarre, there remain profound lessons about life and love that I will carry away.

The Fresh Air interview Read more...

One of the great benefits of reading memoir is that it offers the reader more people to love. I love Betty, and I love George Hodgman, whose beautiful book this is. Read BETTYVILLE. Laugh, weep, and be grateful.

Italian: Bollati Boringhieri

Hodgman… has written what will be seen, even years from now, as the quintessential book on taking care… If I could prescribe a cure for the seeming hopelessness of both growing older and taking care, I would prescribe "Bettyville. Read more...

...a superb memoir…Hodgman is by turns wry, laugh-out-loud funny, self-deprecating, insecure to the point of near suicide, an attentive caregiver despite occasional, understandable resentments…I have read several hundred American memoirs; I would place “Bettyville” in the top five. Read more...

With great tenderness, honesty, and a searing, sardonic humor, George Hodgman has written a love letter to his mother, at once a penance and a tribute. In doing so, he has given us Betty, a character for the ages. This is a beautiful, illuminating book.

...Hodgman writes with wit and empathy...Bettyville is one such masterpiece... Read more...