Hello, I Must Be Going: A Novel [Hardcover]

Christie Hodgen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 2006

"Hodgen's writing soars in this sad and funny novel."—Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle

It's the early 1980s, and tomboy Frankie Hawthorne's world is overturned when her beloved father—a Vietnam amputee who masks depression by playing comedian—shoots himself. Frankie's neighborhood, in a down-at-the-heels industrial city near Boston, has had its own happier times. Left behind along with Frankie are her mother, Gerrie, a waitress at Friendly's, and a sweetly innocent younger brother, Teddy.

Soon, Frankie decides not to talk, resisting the overly ebullient school psychologist, and comforting herself by drawing cartoons. Gerri, now chain-smoking and addicted to television—Doris Day! Rock Hudson!—wears an imaginary charm bracelet of disappointments. The once-adorable Teddy runs wild and is frequently summoned to the principal's office.

Finally, with some unlikely help, Frankie understands the possibility of growing beyond grief. Balancing perfectly between funny and sad, this poignant novel is about the tenacity of ghosts and the stubbornness of love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Randall Hawthorne, a clowning but depressed Vietnam War veteran living in a central Massachusetts city in the early 1980s, commits suicide, he leaves behind a stunned and grieving family—nine-year-old daughter Frankie; her younger brother, Teddy; and their mother, Gerry, a waitress. Frankie, who narrates this wise and often funny first novel about loss and survival (after the collection, A Jeweler's Eye for Flaw), masks her loneliness and pain with the desperate bravura of a precocious but wounded adolescent, mocking her teachers and the school psychologist, drawing obsessively in her sketchbook and dissociating from events in her life by imagining she's a character in a book. But Frankie is too smart and tough to remain isolated forever, and as she proceeds through high school and toward college, she begins to understand the need to connect with others. Most important, she sees how her father's jokes and tall tales were attempts to cover his postwar anguish and to make his children love him. Though Hodgen's sense of the absurd is sometimes overdone and her efforts to capture an adolescent sensibility can err on the side of preciousness, Frankie's vulnerability and resilience make this a moving novel. (May)
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Review

“The work of a wildly talented writer. Christie Hodgen's kid-narrator, Frankie, faces tragic loss in a world where everyone is earnestly, hilariously, flamboyantly making a mess of trying for better days. Every intense, vibrant detail in this novel feels exactly right.” (Joan Silber )

“Dark and witty, Christie Hodgen's prose is exhilarating to read.” (Marly Swick )

“Wise and often funny....Frankie's vulnerability and resilience make this a moving novel.” (Publishers Weekly )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (June 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393061396
• ISBN-13: 978-0641906862
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #642,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christie Hodgen is the author of "Elegies for the Brokenhearted," "Hello, I Must Be Going," and "A Jeweler's Eye for Flaw: Stories." Her awards include two Pushcart Prizes, the AWP Award in Short Fiction, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Visit Christie's website at:

http://christiehodgen.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Frankie is Unforgettable, July 10, 2006

By 

J. N Sandell "So many books, so little time" (Maplewood, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hello, I Must Be Going: A Novel (Hardcover)

The author, Christie Hodgen made a wise and wonderful choice to have a child narrate this book. Frankie Hawthorne is nine years old when her father, whom she is very close to, commits suicide and leaves both she and her younger brother, Teddy to kind of fend for themselves because their mother works all the time and when she isn't working she's glued to the TV set. Frankie has a widly ascerbic, mocking personality and sense of humor. She carries the entire novel and does so quite well. Every line in this book is placed just right and is authentic. This book is very much like real life and I enjoyed it very much.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Oh, we were all afraid of Virginia Woolf.", June 12, 2006

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hello, I Must Be Going: A Novel (Hardcover)

Disaffection, unemployment, the government's disregard for returning veterans, an increasingly unpopular war: all these things color the daily travails of the Hawthorne family, near Boston in the 1980's. For nine-year-old Frankie and her younger brother, Teddy, such problems do not exist, protected by their parents, Gerry and Randall, for that all-too-brief respite called childhood. Gerry works double shifts at a local restaurant, Friendly's, while Randall, a Vietnam amputee, attends to the needs of the children, filling their days with foolish jokes and silly banter, endless Groucho Marx imitations ("Hello, I must be going"), a magical world of TV images and spontaneous laughter. Whatever tensions bedevil their parent's marriage, Frankie and Teddy are exempt, at least until fate intervenes. Even an unexpected visit from "Uncle Harpo" only adds to the children's enjoyment, enthralled by story-filled hours and raucous humor as the brothers reprise the antics of their own youth.

When Randall shoots himself, no longer able to sustain the despair that wracks his days, Frankie and Teddy's childhood comes to an abrupt end. Gerry is overwhelmed, barely treading the rising water of her own grief and helpless to protect her children from the sudden tragedy. Teddy and Frankie rise bravely to the occasion, the emotional fissures of the family only gradually surfacing as the years pass. Later Frankie withdraws, often viewing herself from the third person; Teddy throws increasingly violent tantrums, railing at the unfairness of his young life, set upon a self-destructive path; and Gerry stares, hypnotized by the television, staggering between work and home, drinking herself to sleep, muttering, "you kids", unable to reach her flailing children: "The trouble with the dead was that they packed up and left you, and there was nothing you could do about it."

The author taps into the bittersweet memories of childhood, evoking the fragile and transient moments when a child's existence is not yet trampled by the world. Written in Frankie's perspective, this poignant family drama is infused with unexpected grace, the girl sensitive to her mother's desperate attempts to keep her family safe despite the tensions that drive them apart. They gather religiously in front of their black and white television, enthralled by the simple dramas played out on the screen, the flickering TV almost a family member, the stories as real as any they share in these bleak days. Sustained only by their determination to survive, the family makes a remarkable journey from grief to hope, each battered by a shared loss. Hello, I Must Be Going is a remarkable novel, filled with transcendent moments and heartbreak, unconditional love and laughter triumphant in the face of sorrow and defeat. Luan Gaines/ 2006.

5.0 out of 5 stars Hello, I Must Be Going Tells the Right Story, October 27, 2009

By 

Craig M. Workman "Misanthrope" (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hello, I Must Be Going: A Novel (Paperback)

This story puts the reader in the very places Frankie inhabits. Throughout the tough years of her adolescence, Hodgen expertly creates the life, family, and times of a misunderstood, often stepped-on young woman trying to find her place. A must read!