THE BAD DAUGHTER: Betrayal and Confession [Hardcover]

Julie Hilden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 1998

When Julie Hilden's mother became ill her daughter didn't do what was expected of her. Julie chose to abandon her mother and make her own life. As a child, she used books to escape her mother's silent retreats and bewildering rages. When Harvard's acceptance letter came, she fled. She blamed no one for her sad childhood, and she never asked for forgiveness. THE BAD DAUGHTER is Hilden's haunting, intelligent story of how she began discarding all traces of her former life. In the course of the story, however, Hilden discovers that she can never fully escape her past. Each new relationship she forms is influenced by her betrayal of her mother. And in a final, chilling irony, Hilden learns there is a good chance she carries the very same gene for early-onset Alzheimer's that brought on her mother's terrifying fate. "It's hard to decide what is more remarkable about Julie Hilden's THE BAD DAUGHTER: her unusual courage and frankness or her remarkable gifts as a writer. This is an absorbing book and an impressive debut."--Alison Lurie.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

When her mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, 22-year-old Hilden refused to do what her aunt Betty and society expected her to do?quit law school and care for her now-incapacitated parent. Indeed, before her mother's death, Hilden visited her only once in the nursing home. Although the author expects readers to condemn her actions, she asks, "Would other people really have chosen to care for a mother who wasn't loving, who was often angry, who was often simply gone?" Hilden's brief memoir recalls her unhappy childhood with an alcoholic mother and her attempt to escape and create a new life. Ironically, Hilden, now 29, has a 50-50 chance of carrying the gene for early-onset Alzheimer's. While she raises some powerful issues (selfishness vs. self-preservation), her book is weakened by pretentious, "literary" prose and an unnecessarily long section explicitly detailing her sexual affairs. For collections where dysfunctional family memoirs are popular.?Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Hilden's exquisitely written book is part confessional, part self-examination, part memoir, and totally riveting. It tells the nearly taboo story of an only child who refuses to care for an alienated, ailing mother. Instead, miles away, virtually in another world, the daughter continually re-creates herself, trying to put the past and especially her mother behind. So doing, she knowingly opts to be "bad" --that is, selfish at best, "unnatural" at worst. Hilden's diamond-cut prose pinpoints the exact moments of her preadolescent distancing from her mother and limns with astonishing precision the nuances of displeasure growing into distaste and, finally, disgust as her mother's condition deteriorates from alcohol abuse exacerbated by early-onset Alzheimer's. Whether depicting her mother's increasingly frequent outbursts of irrational rage (from which Hilden fled to Harvard at the earliest possible moment) or her own inability to remain faithful to any man and build intimacy, Hilden's dispassionate style chills and fascinates, never more so than when she learns she may possess DNA predisposing her to Alzheimer's, too. This short book leaves the usual parameters of the narrative of caring for a sick mother far behind and packs an enormous wallop, especially for those for whom alienation from their mothers has become a way of life. Whitney Scott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 198 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 1st edition (January 4, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565121856
• ISBN-13: 978-1565121850
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,888,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Self-deceipt and betrayal of a sick mother., February 27, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: THE BAD DAUGHTER: Betrayal and Confession (Hardcover)

The Bad Daughter is not uplifting yet it is a fascinating account of betrayal and confession. In my experience as a social worker over the past 25 years, I have occasionally met individuals who could not or would not assume responsibility for the care of family members in need. Their lack of involvement is often the cause of much personal shame as well as sorrow and resentment within their families. What is at the root of such blatant disregard? How can familial obligations be ignored? Julie Hilden, a self-described "bad daughter," offers some insight into her own dark motivations as she recounts her life of escapism, including abandonment of her mother diagnosed with Alheimer's disease(AD)at age 50. She correctly describes this as a "taboo story" as her lack of concern for her mother is indeed shocking. On the other hand, her refusal to help somehow seems understandable in light of her depressing personal history. She recounts a lonely time as an only child with two unhappy parents who divorce when she is thirteen year-old. She relocates with her mother whose personal misery is intensified by alcoholism and finally by AD. Julie escapes first into her studies and then into the world of work as a lawyer. Emotional survival uncomplicated by her mother's tragic situation becomes her highest priority. Her mother's sister eventually takes charge of her mother's care until death comes at age 53. Meanwhile, Julie finds she cannot form intimate relationships. She ultimately traces her failed romances and friendships to the refusal to help her mother.

This is a brutally honest and riveting personal account. There is no happy ending and no clues are offered about the daughter's quest for healing. However, the book itself represents a form of personal therapy and hope for the future. To better understand the perspective of family members who choose not to become involved in the care of those with AD, this unsettling book is a good reminder about hidden personal agenda and the terrible consequences of deceit.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books written, April 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: THE BAD DAUGHTER: Betrayal and Confession (Hardcover)

Julie Hilden has written an amazing book, a book filled with depth and passion. She speaks about the difficult choices she had to face in dealing with the pressures of an incredibly painful family life, coupled with law school demands and those of simply growing up.

The Bad Daughter is an honest book -- one that drives the reader to question his or her own character while reading the book, and to ask whether or not the feelings one has as the words pour across the page are derived from empathy, scorn, or a desire to hide one's own similarities to Ms. Hilden. It is written in such a beautiful style, with so many moving episodes, that it will stay with you, forever.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book -- touching and throught-provoking, October 16, 2002

By 

Nosaj Eel (Miami, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: THE BAD DAUGHTER: Betrayal and Confession (Hardcover)

Hilden has written a fantastic memoir. It is simultaneously touching and thought-provoking. Rather than whitewashing the pain and anguish that mental degeneration can impose on a family, Hilden confronts these issues squarely. The result is that you are left with a much more complex understanding of the issues involved and a broader sense of sympathy for the difficulty posed by any particular choice about how to deal with mental degenaration and death. The story itself is touching and moving, as another Amazon reviewer said, "an emotional tour-de-force." And it puts abstract medical ethics issues, like genetic screening, in a very human and very complex framework.

Bravo!