by Katie,
Bettyville is a memoir of a grown son taking care of an elderly parent. I'm not typically a memoir reader but the tone of humour and compassion from the insert drew me in. I watch now as my mother has begun taking care of her own "Betty". My grandmother is feisty and occasionally a bit cantankerous.
How do we relate to Betty?
How do we relate to George?
Do we find similarities between their lives and our own?
Hope we find good humour and kindness in this month's book!
Hello Ladies
ReplyDeleteThe clocks have gone back. Such a relief. Makes the days so much more flexible when you can wander out for a walk in the evening, attend to the garden, drive faster . . . Hope you and your families are enjoying the change in seasons, and a happy Easter to you all. It's Easter Sunday here and later I'll be taking chocolates to my parents. In her mid-nineties, my mother's appreciation of chocolate, always great, has increased.
This month's book had a great impact on me. Thank you for suggesting it, Katie. An amazingly detailed memoir. Another book that needs a family tree and requires re-reading. Had trouble keeping the timeline straight. Must have been difficult for the author to keep a handle on the structure
There were heartrending descriptions and interpretations that rang so true. For example George’s relationship with his parents, clearly so full of love on all sides, yet which couldn’t begin to address the ‘problem’ of George’s homosexuality; the inability of Big George, George and Betty to express their love for each other; and the distress, sadness and guilt occasioned by George’s growing insights into his relationship with his parents, and the impact on them and him of his homosexuality and drug use. All of this was almost unbearable.
I found the depiction of George’s relationship with his father to be more affecting than that with his mother, perhaps because the father’s good qualities never seem to have been appreciated by either his wife or his son.
The portrayal of Betty’s dementia is so similar to my experiences with my mother it was often difficult to read. Horribly realistic. It’s the way dementia sufferers fight the illness, struggle to retain abilities, dignity, that’s so tragic.
Maybe you found the same thing, Nancy?
Mercifully, George’s sense of humour goes some way towards alleviating the sadness, and at least Betty is loved and cared for. You do wonder, however, what will happen to George. Don’t really want to contemplate that. A man as self-aware as he is will never find life easy.
We met a gay bartender in a very, very small town in Texas, who was doing exactly the same as George, except it was his father he had come back to support. Bit younger perhaps than George. He thought it was a temporary situation. I did hope so, for his sake. I mention this, because I fear George and Betty are not that unusual.
A quite literally heart wrenching book that I am now returning to the library. It will be too difficult to re-read. I don’t know how he wrote it.
Much love to you both
Sue
Hello Ladies!
ReplyDeleteHope you’re both well. Spring has come. The daffodils and crocuses have started blooming and we’ve gotten snow. There is a call for more snow this weekend and Monday. I’ve just about had it with this tease. One day we’re outside without coats and the next day I’ve got the kids bundled up. Currently praying for summer to come since spring seems to be confused. Easter was mellow but nice. The kids enjoyed getting too much candy.
I really enjoyed Bettyville despite its sad tones. I agree Sue, Hodgeman’s humor kept the tale from being too depressing. I felt a great deal of empathy for George. The hardships he faced growing up were obviously very overwhelming for him. It’s a pity that his parents were very unable to accept him. I suppose their lack of acceptance stemmed from their own upbringing and the time period they were raised in.
I’m sorry for any difficulties this book had for you both. I should have thought that through a little more.
I hope you have a good support system to help you care for your parents, Sue. That was another thing that made me feel so much empathy for George. As an only child, he has fewer people to aid him in Betty’s care. This frequently leads to burn out among care givers. I see it quite often with the family members of my patients. They have such a sweet, loving, loyalty to their loved ones but it still can be so emotionally taxing. I’ve had so many patients just like Betty. They try so hard to maintain independence wherever they can but that can be frustrating to whomever is caring for them.
A very bittersweet novel. I hope again it wasn’t too hard on you both.
Love to you and your families!
Katie
Hello again
ReplyDeleteKatie, please don't worry about the impact of book choices. Honestly, I'd have stopped reading if it had been too distressing, or, perhaps worse, clearly inaccurate. It's always good to read about someone else in a similar position. And you're right, it made me very aware of how lucky I am to have my brothers. They do so much. Between us and the professionals, there is a good care system in place. And I hugely admire professionals like yourself who have to maintain emotional distance whilst at the same time providing huge emotional support. Heck of a tightrope.
So you just keep right on making such interesting choices. You've no idea how much your recommendations have extended my reading experiences.
Good luck with the snow.
And we're all following the Commonwealth Games here, Nancy - though the ball tampering is still occupying column inches.
Much love to you both
Sue
Hello ladies,
ReplyDeleteI hope your Spring has properly arrived Katie! I don’t want to brag, but I will haha, our weather is fabulous! We have been out in the boat on the lake and enjoying an Easter break with Sam, it was so good. Sue, the Commonwealth Games are about two hours drive north of us, so any scenery you see is pretty much like our coast here. We have been watching some here as well. I don’t follow cricket but I’m disgusted with the amount of media coverage this ball tampering has garnered. It was the top news story for weeks, I’m fairly sure more significant things have happened in our world although listening to the News you wouldn’t know it.
Katie, don’t worry, even though I found the content of our story this month difficult at no time did I consider not finishing this book. I found myself reading it carefully and my respect for the courage and strength it would have taken George Hodgman to pen this continued to grow as I continued to read.
There are so many similarities to my own experiences caring for both my parents, but also as George finds out every dementia is not the same. My Mother was diagnosed with Lewey Bodies Dementia, which is a Parkinsons like disease that attacks the frontal cortex of the brain, very different to Betty, but my Dad’s disease was more typical of dementia patients, so he and Betty were similar in their behaviours and I found myself often smiling and remembering Dad but also often sad when reading of George’s feelings of guilt and frustration, I very much shared those emotions with him.
My family like George’s was also quite non communicative and Mum in particular was always keeping her emotions and her secrets under wraps. As Dad’s dementia progressed and his filters fell away he let his emotions show a lot more and we had some more meaningful conversations, ones he couldn’t remember a few minutes later I might add ! When he was younger we all said Dad had one emotion that covered every situation - angry. It was good for our family that as he aged he mellowed and we got to see and experience a different side to him.
I hope this book served as a catharsis to George Hogman, it seemed he shared so much of himself in it and his caring for Betty helped him to understand himself a little better and to come to terms with who he is and to feel OK about that. The era of AIDS was such a devastating time and so much blame and prejudice made it so ugly. It must have been so difficult as a gay person to live through that, seeing so many friends die and to feel you’re living under a death sentence and then to have scorn and hate poured over the wounds, it makes my heart hurt for them.
Thank you Katie for suggesting this book, I would never have chosen it because I often still find that time too difficult to think about, but I’m so glad you chose it for us, it has helped reading another’s experience and the honesty and humour with which he wrote this makes me in awe of his courage.
much love xx