More and more of us face caring for elderly parents these days, but only a rare few could tell this story with the aplomb and honesty of George Hodgman. Bettyville is a trenchant, elegant, insightful—and often very funny—memoir from a middle-aged ex-New Yorker caring for his elderly mother in their small Missouri hometown. This is also a portrait of small-town America, a story of second acts and learning to live that cuts across multiple generations, told in a wry and loving voice.
We knew Bettyville was a perfect Discover Great New Writers pick from the minute we started reading, which is the same response we had to Will Schwalbe’s poignant memoir, The End of Your Life Book Club (a 2012 Discover pick). Schwalbe recounts the life-long conversation about books he shared with his mother, a conversation which evolved into the two-person book club that helped both of them cope while she underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer. The End of Your Life Book Club had many of the Discover selection committee readers in tears by page 5, on the subway, in telephone calls with their own mothers.
So we’re terrifically pleased to present George and Will on structuring memoir, on being vulnerable (and reading one star reviews of books they love), connecting with readers, and the pleasures of reading, in this far-ranging conversation for the Barnes & Noble Review. – Miwa Messer
Will Schwalbe: George, you’ve written such a beautiful and moving book — about your mother, about your childhood, about the whole process of aging — and not just in the way we usually think about it. You’ve written about the subtle and not-so-subtle shifts that occur throughout life, chronicling the growth and then loss of independence that occurs. But given that your book really encompasses two lifetimes, yours and your mother’s, and given that the story is ongoing, I was curious to know: Why now? What was the processing of deciding to write this book? And how did you know that you were finished, that you’d said all you wanted to say, and that now was the time to stop writing and to publish?
George Hodgman: For years, I have carried around this memory: I was an only child in a tiny town of 528 people in Missouri where there was no kindergarten. Because my parents were worried that I wasn’t getting enough exposure to other children, they paid tuition for me to begin school in a nearby town and my mother drove me every morning to the county line to catch the school bus. She was always running late and drove fast. She took her shoe off and touched the gas pedal with her bare foot. We sang along with the songs on the radio—KXOK in St. Louis where a DJ named Johnny Rabbit played “This Diamond Ring” and the Righteous Brothers and Petula Clark. I always think of my mother in a car, driving. In 2008, I came home and found that Betty — who had promised to drive only to the grocery store, etc.—had lost her driver’s license. It was like this huge chunk of her identity had been taken away. I wrote a little piece on those mornings when she drove me to school. It was really a kind of mourning the loss of that part of my mother. I put it on Facebook and the book began. The first piece opened me up. As Betty began to encounter more and more problems, writing them down was, for me, a way to grieve, but also a way to find a little distance from my feelings of loss. For me, loss is the hardest feeling to sit with and the loss I have always most dreaded is my mother. I just started writing down scenes, taking down what happened, like a reporter. Simultaneously, I was affected by other things, like what had happened to the towns where I had grown up in, these places that I will always love.
The book is set during the worst drought in Missouri in thirty years. I ended the book when the rain came. It somehow seemed right. Then, way later, after it was sold, I wrote an Epilogue when Betty got cancer. A lot of things I had been carrying for a long time came together in this book. I didn’t know that I was carrying them. At first, I was the teller only, really. The focus was entirely on her. Then, when I had a kind of draft, readers wanted to know about me. I think I did those sections especially in a kind of denial that anyone would ever read them.
Right now, I am having a lot of trouble with my family’s reaction to the book. I am feeling really guilty for revealing my mother as an elderly person with problems, not to mention my own troubles. People make me feel that writing about some of our issues is an attack on my parents. I sometimes feel like I should have just kept this all to myself, that it was really just a kind of therapy for myself because of all the things I was feeling.
WS: I love learning that the coming of the rain told you it was time to stop. I very much believe in listening to those kinds of symbols and trusting talismans.
I was very lucky – my father and siblings were very supportive throughout the whole process – and helped me remember things I had forgotten and check facts. As for revealing myself – I really didn’t give it much thought. I suppose I should have! I’m always a bit surprised when people know things about me – like my insomnia. I think “How do you know that?” And then I remember: “Oh, yeah – I wrote a memoir.” Right before the book went to press, I got very anxious about a few things that I thought might embarrass me – that I shouldn’t have put in, that I didn’t really want people to know. But it was too late to make changes, so they stayed in. I don’t even remember what those things are anymore! There was one sentence I must have re-written a hundred times – I was sure it would be a lightening rod for controversy. No one has ever mentioned it. But people do sometimes fixate (positively and negatively) on little phrases that didn’t seem the slightest bit controversial to me when I wrote them. Which just goes to prove what everyone says: you really can’t worry about this stuff! I know easier said than done. As a final note, with regard to tone, I think no one rule fits all memoir. You just have to be yourself. Memoirs need to reflect the way the writer perceives the world.
So on to process! I’m always fascinated by the way other writers work. What was your process? Did you write a bit every day? Binge write? Any tips or tricks you used to get yourself to the computer, and to recall what you needed to recall?
GH: I love this part of the discussion. I love hearing about how people make things. I think that, after years of wanting to write, I was able to do so because I found a process that worked for me. I was raised with such a strong, somewhat punishing work ethic; I’ve always thought that to study, to edit, to “work” meant sitting there, hour after hour after hour, forcing oneself to produce. I’m not sure how it happened, but I was able to relax into this and that’s what’s what it allowed it to happen. My mother gets up at 9 a.m. For a long time, I worked very late, but I started getting up at 4 or 5 a.m. when I got going on the book. I always ended the work the previous day with a very specific idea of what I needed to do the following morning, a discrete task that got me going so I didn’t have to feel like I was just going into a blank space. Anyway, I’d make coffee, take the dog out, and then set to work on that task or maybe I’d have a goal of just finishing a specific scene. Then, after my mom got up and the day’s action began, I’d always go back to the computer now and then to add, subtract, modify things I was thinking about at the grocery store, or driving to the doctor’s, or walking the dog. So much of the work happened in my head when I wasn’t “working.” I didn’t force it. Also, sometimes I was waiting for something to happen, for my mom to do something, for an “event.” I wrote at a card table near the couch where my mom always sits. Sometimes I’d just sit there transcribing what she said. Sometimes, if I was really nervous, I’d provoke something such as getting out some old postcards for her to look at or just sort of “interviewing” her. I kept waiting for Mary Karr to materialize in my room and scream, “No, that isn’t allowed. That isn’t happening naturally.” I don’t know; I may have broken rules, but part of the excitement and magic of the whole process for me was when something would come out of nowhere at a moment when I needed it. At some point, my cousin told me the story of our great grandmother riding alone on the train to see the bones of Robert E. Lee’s horse, Traveller. I loved this and wanted to use it.
The heavy lifting or a lot of it, for me, was structure. I rearranged things so many times. I think merely chronological telling is kind of boring. Also, writing shows you your way of being in the world: my book alternates between me being “in the world, in the moment” with my mom and my own internal dialogues and experience and memories. This book is clearly the product of someone who spends a certain amount of time in his own head for whatever reasons. I just had to constantly work through my own nervousness and the feeling it was no good. I used to think that an editor’s job was to edit, you know, work with the copy and structure and do line work. This process has shown me that the best kind of editor is the person you find during the writing process who makes you believe what you are doing is good enough to keep on with, that you will solve the problems. “Please just don’t let me make a fool of myself,” I asked my early readers. I guess what I’ve learned is to relax into the writing, find your own process, do a little here and there, realize it is happening when you are not at your desk, and don’t get so nervous about whether it’s good. There is plenty of time for the world to decide about the quality—when your agent reads, when they send it out to editors. You just have to try your best not to inhibit yourself with those fears. Tell, me about your process, Will and the memoirs that helped you, inspired you, interested you.
WS: The writing of the book was an interesting journey in itself. I had mentioned to my mother a few months before she died that I wanted to write something about her, the books we read, and what I’d learned. “Oh, sweetie, you don’t want to spend your time doing that. You have so many other things to do and to write.” I told her I wanted to do it — because I was proud of her. The next day, Mom sent me an email — it was an annotated list of all the books we read. And she kept sending me additions and notes — and things to be sure to mention, like the need for health care reform.
So I had those notes. I’m also a compulsive scribbler and note-taker. So I had a lot of notes myself. When you are waiting around in hospital waiting rooms, there’s insane amounts of time to put your thoughts on paper. And I had the blog we had kept to remind me of some key dates.
I wrote the first draft of the book in the year after she died. I was incredibly blessed to have a wonderful editor — Marty Asher. At the end of the year, I sent him the way-too-long manuscript. He worked through several drafts with me over the next year. So it was really two full years from start to finish. I’m kind of a binge-writer — so I would work on it nonstop for days at a time, and then not work on it for days at a time. I was also working more than full-time with my start-up website for most of this period. So I didn’t do a lot of sleeping.
But I found great solace in the writing. Some friends told me they thought it was great that I was doing this — that it would give me closure. But I realized I didn’t want closure. I wanted to continue my conversations with my mother. In many ways, that’s what I felt I was doing. And am still doing.
As for the book that was most helpful to me — it was Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, a great book not just on how to write but on how to live. It’s a book that I still keep on my bedside. It taught me to just get the first draft down on paper — and not edit myself until that was done. It helped me remember to break down the process into manageable chunks. And it reminded me that it was my book and I should write about what I wanted to write about and the way I wanted to write about it. I owe a huge debt to Anne Lamott.
The technical aspect that was most challenging but really most fun was figuring out where to break each chapter. I think one of the ways we make sense of our lives is how we divide the incidents of our lives into stories. Every time we tell stories of our lives, we are choosing to start at a certain point and end at another. Our lives, of course, are a continuous scroll from start to finish — like Kerouac’s On the Road. So I gave a lot of thought to this — trying especially hard to make each chapter true to our predominant emotion at the time. For example, during the months when we were most hopeful, I wanted the chapters to end on a hopeful or lighter note.
What books were most helpful to you, George? And I would also love your thoughts on the classic question — to MFA or not to MFA?!
GH: I think that my interest in writing in first person came out of music and performance (theater, soliloquies) as well as certain books. When I was a kid, I was crazy about Lily Tomlin, her ability to capture the voices of her characters and their eccentricity. She helped me hear tone of voice, personal voice, and also made me aware of the comedy of everyday events and—and this is very strong for me—the potential poignancy of comedy and how you can mix comedy and longing, pathos. I also listened to all these confessional songwriters such as, you guessed it, Joni Mitchell and a lot of people who put their full, complete, eccentric, neurotic, passionate, romantic, sexual selves into their lyrics. In other words, “on display.” They were courageous, admitted to us, “Hey, I’m not normal either, and that’s okay.” Their words and their ability to be themselves furthered my interest in self-presentation and provided a model for honesty, for allowing oneself to be intimate with the listener or “reader.” Then, in high school, I discovered Didion, that voice, that self-creation, that honed, spare, elegant style, the sense of performance in putting forward a self that is both, in a sense, created and real. All of this together pushed me beyond the kind of impersonal, “good, clean writing” that one is taught in journalism school and in other places and which is conventionally accepted. I fell in love with voices, many of them female and eccentric—Renata Adler’s Speedboat was a favorite. I can still recite the beginning of Elizabeth Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights by heart. I loved early Lorrie Moore, but also Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. Also the voices of poetry—Auden, especially—and Galway Kinnell furthered my interest in lyricism, the extremely personal, the naming of emotions that seemed unexpressed. Sedaris, later on, said to me (not personally): You can be as strange as you are, as crazy as you are; you can be funny in your way and trust people to get it. Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club just knocked me out; it was one of the pieces that taught me that memoir is best when accompanied by the sense of place. Her book, Lit, taught me the value of generosity to the people one is writing about—be careful and gentle and fair but be honest– and the idea that one has to be the toughest on oneself. It’s not just memoir I love; it’s voices, the voices of “characters.” I’ve just discovered Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation—such a singular, human, honest voice; it’s another book that felt freeing to me. It says, “Be Whoever You Are on the Page.” All of these together somehow helped me conjure me up, gave me courage. Joan Didion said, “If you’re going to write about yourself, you have to give them something.” There was a lot I didn’t especially want to reveal in Bettyville, but I pushed it because I think so much about human life has already been said, so much already mapped and charted.
I don’t much care about programs. I think the best thing they provide is escape from the pressures of having a job and the gift of time to write, to take yourself seriously as a writer. But I don’t really like reading things in groups. There’s too much competition and I think that can silence people.
What do you want to do next? What is the future for you? Are you scared you won’t find another story? I am? I am really worried that I won’t find another vessel that brings out myself and my feelings.
WS: I’m actually at work on a new book. I’m not saying one single thing about it — taking the advice of a writer who told me that you can talk about your book, or you can write your book, but it’s hard to do both. I do feel like once I’ve told something to someone I lose the need and the urgency to write it down.
I love your question about whether I’m scared I won’t find another story! That’s the just tip of the iceberg of my neuroses. Yes, but I’m also scared that I left the turntable on; scared that I offended someone in the elevator today because I was on my handheld and not as friendly as I might have been; scared that I killed our only houseplant by over-watering it — you get the point! What I try to do (thanks to the wisdom of the extraordinary writer David K. Reynolds) is “Do what needs to be done.” You can be scared and not write. Or you can be scared and write. But if you don’t write, you shouldn’t blame it on being scared.
Still, no matter what I’m feeling, I try to write.
My biggest enemy, however, isn’t my fears — it’s cat videos. But prior to the Internet, I managed to waste time reading magazines and staring at the wall. So I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. (I also try to avoid cliches, clearly often unsuccessfully).
My biggest aid is insomnia. I’m awake from 2am to 6am just about every morning. So I get out of bed and write, and then go back to sleep for an hour. And I’ve found that if I read something really wonderful right before going to bed, then it helps me write during those early morning hours.
Recently, I’ve been turning again and again to a book of poetry called Chameleon Hours by Elise Partridge. Her language and imagery are astonishing.
Soon your book will be on nighttables and bookshelves. What’s the reaction you most hope for from readers?
GH: What is the reaction I hope to provoke? Utter and complete emotional breakdown, of course. I want to leave those readers drained, soggy, wistful, chuckling loudly and in awe of the incredible beauty of the experience we have shared. In other words, I’d love to touch them, bring out some kind of emotions. Now that I think about it, though, there is something else. I have put myself out there in this book. I have risked looking like a fool and a loser. I have told them my secrets and so many of my mistakes and hurts. I want them to be my friends. I want them to feel like we’re established a little relationship together, a little intimacy. I want to connect. I would also be interested in any ensuing exchanges that involve large amounts of money or real estate changing hands.
Can we talk a bit about reviews and reactions? You know, one doesn’t realize that, with the Internet, authors can now be personally attacked by, like, five million people a minute with the words there for all the world to see. People who hated me in second grade, I note online, are writing to say that I was surly and irritable even in childhood. A woman in Mississippi referred to my (former, relax) drug addiction as a “zippity do dah drug dependency problem.” What does that mean? I mean, what are they taking in Mississippi? Another man accused me of being repetitive. Five times he accused me of being repetitive. My cousin, after reading the book, said, “If I wrote about every man I’ve ever slept with, my father would have been angry, humiliated and embarrassed.” All I could think of to say was, “I’ve slept with a lot more men than I write about.” This didn’t seem like it was really going to re-bond us, though. So anyway, what do you do with all these feelings that people’s reactions arouse and how do you manage when someone says something that makes you think, “Is he talking about my book? I didn’t write that?”
WS: We could talk about this subject for hours and hours! But I think one way to view it is this: sure, authors can be attacked by five million people simultaneously, but they can also be embraced by the same number. And sometimes the people who love what you do are spurred on to add their voices to the chorus when they read something negative. I think it’s really important to remember that all of these conversations were taking place and they have always taken place – we just didn’t have any ability to see them or know about them. I know you aren’t going to follow this – but one approach is really to try not to read them, or at least try not to read them when you are in a delicate frame of mind. The good or the bad. Another thing to remember is that you had the opportunity to say everything you wanted to say when you wrote the book – and now other people have that opportunity. Sure, your life and work is the springboard to what they are writing, but they have every bit as much right to write as you did, and wherever and in whatever form they want to.
One thing that is fun to do is to look at the reviews online of your favorite books – and read the one-star reviews of those books. This is not because one-star reviews are wrong – it’s just a way to remember that lots of people have lots of opinions, and there is probably no one-star review of a book you love that will make you love that book less. People will feel the same way about your book. Some five stars will convince the one-stars and some one-stars will convince the five-stars, but, by and large, people will express their opinions and not really be swayed by others. And people purchasing your book will read a couple of good and bad ones and make up their minds based on all sorts of criteria.
My last word on this subject is what to do when readers find you. I made myself very findable. One of the joys of my last two years was corresponding with the readers who contacted me. Sometimes they got in touch just because they wanted to say something nice, which I hugely appreciated. But often they wanted to share with me something of their own journeys, which was a huge privilege. There are so many remarkable readers and people out there – and I have so many great pen pals now. I try to spend my mental energy on them – not on the people who don’t like what I am doing.
One final question: Tell me what you are reading right now!
GH: I just finished the five Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn, novels which are as brilliant as everyone says they are—stiletto sharp writing, wickedly funny portraits of the decadent English upper class. He’s as good a writer as there is, I think, but you don’t want to be him, despite it all. His humor and vision are often lacerating and his intense focus on his own justifiably dark state of mind are emotionally wearing. Everyone is skewered—incredibly well—but there is something so joyless. You feel a little trapped in those books and the snobbery, the looking down on others who are less stylish or sophisticated is not appealing. Before that I read Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation, which I mentioned above, and loved unreservedly. Pure pleasure and a wonderful, original voice. Before that, I read Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers, a novel I’d stalked for a while, but had trouble getting into until this attempt. Her subject matter is fresh and she’s amazing at big, slightly satirical scenes with self-conscious arty types, etc. Her upper-class Italians are as awful as their English counterparts, though. It reminds me a bit of Portrait of a Lady, an innocent among monsters. I’ll tell you, though, the book that was not only pleasurable and gripping, but also brilliant, I thought was Tana French’s Broken Harbor. I love great crime and detective novels, but I can’t think of one with as much soul as this or more human, multifaceted, haunted characters. Her interrogation scenes are stunning delineations of character, not just of the people being questioned, but of the questioners, the policemen. The ultimate revelation of the murderer, of a crime committed out of a terrible necessity, is absolutely heart-breaking. I’ve read and liked most of her other books. This one is literature and I think she should be taken as seriously as all these non-genre award-nominees. The book floored me. Now, you, Will, and—if you won’t or can’t reveal what you are working on, tell me your dream, tell me the kind of book you would give anything to write before you shuffle off this mortal coil.
WS: I’m at work on a new book and it even has a title. But I’m loving having it be my own private thing right now – so I’m not talking about it at all. One great piece of advice someone gave me (and I can’t remember who it was) was this: “You can talk about it or you can write about it, but if you talk about it, you may not feel you need to write about it.” So I’m writing about it. Or I’m trying to. As for the book I would give anything to write – it’s more like the books I would have given anything to have written. I just can’t fathom, for example, what it would be like to have the talent of a Rohinton Mistry and be able to write a novel like A Fine Balance. Or to be Louise Penny and turn out one dark and dazzling and gorgeously-written mystery novel after another. Or to be Nikki Giovanni and write the poems she does. Or to be John Grisham and have written The Confession, which is not only an insanely gripping novel, but is also as powerful an indictment of the death penalty as I could ever imagine reading. But I guess that if I had written those books (and poems) then I wouldn’t have had the joy of reading them. So I guess the best I can say is some day I would like to do to someone what those books (and poems) did to me. I don’t think that’s something you can try to do – I think all I can do is try to write the books I want to write. But I would love to know that something I wrote worked that kind of magic on a reader. Serious magic. And maybe even changed the world a bit.
As usual, my bookstand is piled high with books. And I love knowing that any one of them could move and amaze me the way that the books I named above did. On the nightstand are two books I can’t wait to read: Night at the Fiestas by Kirstin Valdez Quade, and Ghettoside by Jill Leovy. Both Discover picks along with your book! Also on my nightstand is a book I can’t wait to re-read: The American People by my friend Larry Kramer. This is a staggeringly brilliant book – our history from the dawn of time to World War II.
And coming this spring is a book that I know will become another of my favorites. I mentioned earlier a book of poetry called Chameleon Hours by Elise Partridge. It’s filled with some of the most beautiful and moving poems I’ve ever read. I was devastated to learn that Elise died last week, at age 56, after a long battle with cancer. She had just finished a new book of poetry called The Exiles’ Gallery. It’s coming out in April.
Since I tend to write in the middle of the night – from 3am to 6pm – I find that whatever I’ve read right before I went to sleep inspires me. So I try to read great things. Luckily there are a ton of great books to read. I, too, loved the Patrick Melrose novels, by the way. And I just started Jenny Offill’s book and can’t wait to get back to it. Another recent favorite is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I could do this all day!
But now back to you! What should I have asked you that I didn’t? Or what did you ask me that I should have asked you?
GH: Will, thanks again for this exchange, your time, and your inspiration. I guess the point I would make is that all around us, everyday, so many people are dealing with these difficult struggles: dementia, cancer, so many hard experiences. You know from your mother that living with these things is such a battle; every morning, every day, there are the pain and sadness that exist not just for the patient but for the people who are there with them. I want to show everyday courage here. I hope this book will be a friend to everyone who is just trying to go on with grace and dignity, especially the very old who are so often relegated to the list of what we ignore, what is too hard to look at. The point here is that the caregiver, despite the stress and depressing moments, takes something away from caring for someone. Caring is necessary in this world. I love old people, their feistiness, humor, and spirit. I also wanted to show the need for families to communicate about everything and I wanted people to get the difficulties faced by gay kids—especially in small, nonurban places—who are struggling with themselves. A couple of weeks ago, in Oklahoma, a woman named Sally Kern introduced legislation that would make it illegal to perform gay marriages, make it okay to refuse to serve gay people in restaurants, allow parents to make their young boys and girls submit to conversion therapy to change who they are. Anyone in Oklahoma can call themselves a conversion therapist and perform any untested, far-fetched method of changing gay kids. These kids will be damaged, perhaps all their lives. To rob a child of his self-respect, to shame him or her at the beginning is almost murder. These kids who overhear, who take in the negative things that are so much a part of our political discussion now, are being damaged. It takes a lot to get out of bed in the morning if you are old and tired. It takes a lot if you are a scared kid who carries shame. Look around you. Just be kind. That’s my message, I hope, and also, laugh at every opportunity.