Customer Reviews

THE BAD DAUGHTER: Betrayal and Confession

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

There are some virulently negative reviews of this book posted here. It's really rather extraordinary. It certainly confirms Hilden's own statement that this is a "taboo" book, that it is not a book with a satisfying resolution of release and forgiveness. Instead, it is a most unhappy tale that is still in progress. That someone could write a memoir like this so young and convey so much pain so succintly is its own denouncement of those who have apparently drawn some half-baked conclusions about Hilden's personality. My guess is that many nay-sayers did not bother to finish the book, and ought to consider more carefully Hilden's reflections on the possibility of Alzeihmers hanging over her like Damocles' sword.

Through an almost clinical relay of her life, she shows for us the detachment she uses to describe her as a child. It does not make for easy reading, but you can only mourn for her soul as she relays the trite and malformed relationships she has had with men. It was telling that over a hundred pages of the book went by with no mention of her father. Even in her most dry and pitiless prose one can sense the incessant pain of her life. So often pain is the root source of obsession; that it often results in success --and Hilden is obviously an extremely gifted attorney-- certainly cannot obscure the root pain in her life. Applaud her for this brave expiation; I could at times feel her tears in her writing, it must have been so painful to write this. A tremendous little book; I read it in one sitting.

An unsparing, unsentimental account of a woman's physical and mental disintegration, and her daughter's abandonment of her, this beautifully-written, multi-layered memoir is both an apologia and a confession.

It is powerful enough to shake the reader's moral certainties, and subtle enough to merit more than one reading.

This memoir is so completely engrossing, I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night just because I had to know the ending. The surprise is, the last couple of pages left me sobbing so hard I couldn't sleep. It is a beautifully written account of the author's increasing emotional and physical distance from her mother as her mother descends into rage and abusiveness stemming, the author learns only too late, from early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The author's emotions seem so controlled through it all, even after she learns of the diagnosis and of its genetic implications, one might think her unfeeling. But her pain and the pathos are inescapable in a unnerving way. Unforgettable.

Ms. Hilden's searching memoir yeilds unsparing insight into the relationship between parent and child. Her elegant narrative grips the reader from start to finish. Ms. Hilden's treatment of Alzheimer's should be read by every relative of every person afflicted with the disease. Such a honest book is a rare gem.

Here is an unforgettable glimpse into another's life, a glimpse that is at times almost unbearably painful in its honesty, its truth, if those are separate qualities, as I think they are. More than once as I read this too short book, I hoped and even thought it was a novel. But it is apparently real, though the isolation Hilden conveys of herself is belied by the list of friends in the Acknowledgement.

The writing is beautiful. Here's an example and Julie, writing of her friend, could be describing herself: "She'd look at herself in the mirror, unadorned, as if there were one more thing she could take off, like a porcelain mask held upon a wooden stick that she could lower: the mask of her fragile beauty itself.It never worked for her that particular mask...." In this book, Hilden removes and holds out layer upon layer of herself and in each, there's a universality; seeing, absorbing each, the reader, this reader, feels a shock of recognition. This is a brave book which I shan't soon forget.

Very well written. I agree fully with reviewer Daniel Kuhn. Great depth in self - analysis and writing style. But leaves me wondering if she would still react the way she did, were she to relive those days. Does she repent? - I cannot say. I appreciate her honesty, - read only if you can stomach stark honesty!

I feel lucky that I discovered this memoir - I found it completely absorbing. It is rare to find someone so outwardly successful who is willing to reveal their great mistakes and pain. But it is even more surprising that it comes from a young person and concerns her own recent behavior. It's about acknowledging one's secrets, making big mistakes, and then fighting to change and grow. Sure, a lot of what she says and does is ugly and morally reprehensible - but her honesty lets us sympathize with her and, I believe, learn something from her mistakes. I'd recommend it to anyone who can handle honesty.