Publishers Weekly
★ 07/22/2019
This shocking debut charts how Betz-Hamilton’s family suffered after falling victim to identity thieves. When Betz-Hamilton was 12 in the early 1990s, her parents stopped receiving their mail, including their bills. The author’s often depressed mother, who was in charge of household finances, concluded that some vindictive person was out to get the family. The author watched as troubles piled on: her parents had their utilities turned off and received a foreclosure notice, her mother was accused of passing bad checks at a store she supposedly never went to, her father learned he had property he never knew existed. “Closed curtains became a hard-and-fast rule in our house,” writes the author, who became paranoid and wary of strangers. When Betz-Hamilton went to college, she learned via a credit report that she’d had her identity stolen, too, at age 11. This discovery, which Betz-Hamilton relays with the tension of a thriller, compelled her to focus her studies on identity theft. It is only after her mother’s death that a cache of incriminating documents is discovered on the family property. Betz-Hamilton then begins an investigation into her mother’s past, a process that leads to jaw-dropping revelations. Astonishing and disturbing, this emotionally resonant book is perfect for true crime fans. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"Reads like a grim folk tale...intimate and engrossing."—The New York Times
"The air of menace is palpable...A deeply compelling story of a crime that hit close to home."—NPR
"The tension of a thriller...[and] jaw dropping revelations. Astonishing and disturbing, this emotionally resonant book is perfect for true crime fans."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This memoir has all the suspense and twists of a thriller; even as readers begin to suspect the truth, it still shocks...highly recommended."—Booklist
"Betz-Hamilton expertly blends true crime and memoir in this tale of family, lies, and identity...a brave, candid examination of her painful past [and] a poignant and fascinating exploration of identity theft."
—Library Journal
"'Identity theft' sounds like something that happens far, far away and only to other people...certainly not within a seemingly picture-perfect family in the rural U.S. In a gut-wrenching portrayal of victimization starting at age 11, Axton Betz-Hamilton shows that's simply not true. The stunning revelations will keep you looking over your shoulder for a long time and even more troubling...at the ones you think you know the best!"—Nancy Grace, legal commentator, broadcast journalist, and New York Times bestselling author of The Eleventh Victim
"Axton Betz-Hamilton's story is remarkable. One of the primary challenges for those of us advocating for more rights and resources for identity theft victims is their reluctance to share their experience. Betz-Hamilton writes with candor and grace about both her relationship with her mother/perpetrator, and the long term effect victimization has had on her life."—EvaCasey Velasquez, president/CEO of Identity Theft Resource Center
"A brave, rueful memoir of fear and heartbreak in rural America. Axton Betz-Hamilton mines the most essential of life's questions: can we ever really know the people we love? The Less People Know About Us is an unflinching portrait of grit and determination in the wake of a fractured childhood and complicated grief."—Carolyn Murnick, author of The Hot One
Library Journal
09/01/2019
Debut author Betz-Hamilton expertly blends true crime and memoir in this tale of family, lies, and identity. As an 11-year-old, her world is turned upside down when her identity, as well as her parents' identities, is stolen. In a time before computers, police were baffled by the case, and unable to offer the support and services the family needed to recuperate. The author's formative years were spent traveling from place to place, trying unsuccessfully to outrun the ubiquitous identity theft. As a result of their trauma, Betz-Hamilton's parents isolated and insulated the family from outsiders, causing the young woman to develop severe anxiety and other mental health issues. As an adult, with a poor credit score owing to faulty lines of credit extended from her childhood, Betz-Hamilton grapples with the fallout of lives consumed by the crime and its lasting effects. Her ability to untangle the intricacies surrounding this case highlights a brave, candid examination of her painful past. VERDICT A poignant and fascinating exploration of identity theft. This book will appeal to those with an interest in family-centered memoirs and crime.—Mattie Cook, Flat River Community Lib., MI
Kirkus Reviews
2019-08-26
Memoir of a life under the shadow of identity theft.
Betz-Hamilton (Consumer Sciences/South Dakota State Univ.) grew up in the age before the internet, a time when it took considerable effort to assume another person's identity and exercise financial fraud under those auspices. For a time, her mother was given to buying cheap, "pointless" jewelry from TV shopping channels, hiding the fact from her father, but she was seemingly normal compared to others in the family. Since the identity thief seemed to follow them wherever they traveled, moving often to stay a step ahead of creditors, taking pains to hide their whereabouts, it became evident that someone within the family was the author of the plot. Was it the grandmother who "had long ago stopped taking her insulin"? Grandma's boyfriend, who made a career of sitting on the porch? Some other relative? The payoff, a financial version of the movie Halloween, is surprising indeed, and it opens onto a world of mental illness on the part of adults and a life of bewildered, anxious isolation on the part of a child who bore no blame in the matter. As the author writes, "recalling the phoneless house of my teenage years, I began to realize how especially damning it had been to lose that connection to the outside world." Betz-Hamilton has since become a specialist on identity theft, and her notes on such matters as how debt is traded back and forth between credit card companies and collection agencies are revealing. Still, though the book is fairly short, it seems padded, and the writing is too often clunky: "There have been a few moments in my life when reality has skipped in front of me like a broken television"; "Grief waited like horses locked in a starting gate." Given that identity theft and fraud are both commonplace and comparatively easy to fix these days, readers might find the memoir dated as well.
Though with an unexpected payoff, this is a tale in need of streamlining.
