Bettyville

When George Hodgman left Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he found himself (an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook) in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Can 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 they 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 life to the star-studded corridors of Vanity Fair where he once worked.