A friend suggested that I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls a few months ago, and I have to admit when she first described it I was a bit leery. I thought it was going to be one of those “poor pitiful me” sagas about growing up with shitty parents. But I had heard a few things on the news about this woman and figured it was worth a try.

First and foremost this book is anything but a “poor pitiful me” story. Is they author’s life difficult? Oh my gosh yes. That would be the understatement of the century. But the way she tells her story is incredibly refreshing. Every hardship is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner that you don’t get the sense that she is trying to elicit sympathy. Rather she’s just telling you about her life. There are moments, too, when I think she relishes in the fact that she unflinchingly faced these harsh circumstances and beat them (sometimes literally).

There are times though I felt she was too blase about the neglect and abuse she and her siblings experienced. I wanted her to get angry and scream “WHY ME?!?!” a few times. But ultimately I think it was her mechanism for dealing with such a (for lack of a better phrase) fucked up life. She didn’t give the circumstances too much weight, and therefore they had little power to control her and drag her down.

However, it is impossible to read this book and not want to strangle these parents. If you looked up neglect in the dictionary, you’d find their picture. Not only did they fail to supervise and protect their children from, oh, say, the dangers of cooking over an open flame, but they also turned a blind eye to all sorts of physical abuse from other family members and friends. The phrase, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” MUST have been invented by Rex and Mary Walls. It is their excuse for everything.

And yet, there are moments when you find it hard to completely hate these two people. In between the frustration and anger that their actions stir up, there are moments of good parenting. I loved how they treated their children like little adults when it came to education. There was no Elmo or Barney or Dora. Instead they taught them about the stars and physics and read great literary works to them. These kids grew into incredibly intelligent people because they were exposed to all kinds of information. I’m sure at the time the parents were simply indulging their own interests, but it rubbed off on these kids in a way that flash cards and writing lines of spelling words never could. It created an insatiable curiosity about the world around them, which proved to be their only saving grace in the end.

This is a jaw dropping account of one woman’s life, and it is unlike any other memoir I’ve ever picked up. Definitely add this to your must-read list.

OK, all right, I read The Glass Castle. Stop nagging me already.

I've been avoiding this book for years because I was tired of dysfunctional family memoirs. Bookstores are saturated with them. Enough, I say!

But I finally caved because I had loved Walls' novel Half Broke Horses, and because so many friends had raved about Glass Castle. (And if you haven't read Half Broke Horses, I highly recommend it.)

Walls has a brisk writing style that I really like. Her chapters are short and direct -- you can tell she was trained in a newsroom because she knows how to describe a scene, make her point and then move the hell on to the next one.

I've joked that I'm probably the last person in the country to read this book, but in case someone hasn't it's about Walls' crazy parents and her knock-around childhood. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother was a free spirit, neither could hold down a job and the family was constantly having to "do the skedaddle" and leave town when bill collectors came knocking. Walls and her siblings often went hungry and had to scavenge for food. Their home usually didn't have heat or electricity, and frankly it was a miracle the kids survived to adulthood. By the time Walls was an adult and had moved to New York, her parents had settled on being homeless and refused to do anything else.

I will admit this book was difficult to read -- at times I was enraged by how awful the parents were. How could they be so selfish and neglectful? Here are some especially infuriating incidents:

*When the parents locked their four children in the back of a U-Haul for a multi-state skedaddle.

*When her parents couldn't be bothered to fix any number of crumbling, unsafe homes.

*When her dad stole Walls' babysitting money so he could buy booze.

*When her dad took her to a bar to be molested by pervy guys so he could hustle in pool.

*When her mom refused to get a job to buy food for the kids.

*Her mother constantly referring to their life as an adventure, and her father always daydreaming about get-rich quick schemes.

Walls tacks on a final chapter that shows how well she and her siblings are doing as adults, but I'm dispirited after finishing this memoir. The stories are entertaining and shocking, but now I've got all this irritation and nowhere to put it. I wish I could build my own glass castle and store my anger there.

Note: I mentioned how much I liked Walls' novel Half Broke Horses, and if you're new to her books, I recommend reading Horses first because it's about Walls' grandmother, and you'll get a better sense of where her mother came from.

can’t believe I let this rot on my shelf for SO LONG… too good

An amazing memoir. What a story!

This was magnificent! “The Glass Castle” is a non-fictional piece of work about Jeannette Walls’ childhood and her growing up with her rootless family all around America, but it’s largely written like fiction and I devoured it.
There is no questioning the fact that Jeannette had an extraordinary and ruthless childhood. The book opens up with an episode from when she was 3 years old and set herself on fire making hotdogs, and the continued account of her life shows more of the battles and hardships she and her family went through. Her father was a drunk, her mother an aspiring artist and both of them had a desire for adventure.
This account of life was fascinating! As much as it hurt me to read about Jeannette’s life, it also intrigued me a lot and made me wonder about my own childhood and view on life. As I said, I devoured this and am now so excited to watch the movie - which honestly can’t be as good and insightful as the book.

This is not a review. There are already thousands of those. Instead, I present an anecdote.

I read this in 2008 for my now-defunct neighborhood book club. I decided that my oldest son, who was then 14, should read it for "Mom's Summer Reading Plan" - also known as the Mom-Forces-Us-To-Read-For-Half-An-Hour-Each-Day-Torture-Program by certain members of the family. I felt it was important for him to learn that not every child gets to grow up in a household that has eight different video game systems. I wanted him to imagine what it would be like if his father came home one night and said "We have to move right now. You can take ONE THING with you."

Well, he grumbled and he whined. Then he shut up and started to read. He never said too much about the book, though he liked the part where the rat would come to eat out of the mother's big bowl of sugar. And then I saw on his Facebook profile that he had listed The Glass Castle as his favorite book. Huh, how 'bout that?

And now, seven years later, my youngest son came home with the book he has to read for English class. Guess what it is?
You got it!


Ah . . . sweet vindication. Yup, yup, yup!

This is the very first memoir I've ever read... and what can I say except... even through all their neglect, irresponsibility, stubbornness, shadiness, and remarkable intelligence, but sheer ignorance and prejudice in other ways (especially Rex)...undoubtedly, there was love... it was there... The short chapters were a win... many times, I smh and tsked and exclaimed.... and even felt akin to certain regrets... what a courageous ordeal.

A review on the back of my copy reads:

Jeannette Walls has a story to tell, and tells it brilliantly, without an ounce of pity.

No pity? Yep. You've got that right.

No pity and NO EMOTIONS whatsoever. And certainly no humor.

Ms. Walls tells her story like a journalist, which of course, she is, but it didn't work for me that she wasn't sharing her story, but reporting the facts.

I felt cheated and unsafe throughout this entire read, as though Ms. Walls was allowed to be robotic and detached, but I was supposed to be delighted by the love she tried to sell as the basis of this memoir. The family that betrays together stays together?

Love? Like the love her father expressed as he tried to sell her young body to a stranger? Like the love her mother conveyed by allowing them to live in filth, be homeless, be neglected, hungry, unclothed and so on? These parents were the most loathsome narcissists I've ever had the misfortune to meet.

I needed Jeannette Walls to crack me up at the absurdity of it all (David Sedaris style) or BURN THE DAMN HOUSE DOWN TO THE GROUND. Here's the match, Jeannette, take it from my hand.

This glass castle, built on garbage, was a garbage read for me, despite placing me in an incredible minority by declaring so.

This was a book that celebrated impotence, enabling and neglect and there was no catharsis here, no retribution, either.

I was as angry as the Count of Monte Cristo by the end of this read.

I demand my revenge!

What a mesmerizing journey I was lucky enough to take. Well’s tale is a unique description of an unique life where the unusual was just her normal. No matter how poor her family was and how neglected the children were, there was still love and grit. The book was well-written and it was easy to feel like you were there, witnessing it all.

( 4★ ) no spoilers
. . . 1 1 / 2 6 / 2 4 !

me sitting in class watching the others predict what might happen in the novel after finishing it 2 weeks before the class for the 101010200 time:



This memoir is incredibly impactful and speaks volumes about the complexities of parenting and familial bonds. I urge everyone to read it before becoming a parent, as there’s so much to learn from the experiences shared. While I would never judge a memoir because the author’s lived experiences are undeniably real, I must admit that the ending left me feeling deeply frustrated—perhaps even a bit unsatisfied. It’s hard to accept that Jeanette's parents, despite the harm they caused, continued to live their lives believing they were good parents. The fact that they never truly confronted the consequences of their actions feels incredibly unfair. I'm glad she's in a better place though <3

﹙started﹚ㅤ

It's almost too hard to believe this is a memoir. In the beginning I truly loved the way this couple looked at life, and how the family dynamics were endearing even if life was tough. Later on when the fathers alcoholism, and mothers obvious mental illness progressed, things went from bad to intolerable. The sheer tenacity of the kids is amazing. One truly never knows the hardships others may have endured. An incredible read, I loved it.

A Memorial to my Friend

My friend Judith was given this book by a friend of hers who said that it reminded her of the stories Judith told her of her life in the Appalachian Mountains in Cumberland Gap. I had heard her stories as well, and after reading the book the similarities were only the hunger and the irresponsibility of her mother but not her father.

Judith’s mother remarried when she was 3 years old, and she loved her step father dearly because he was good to her. Her mother was another story altogether. She was cruel, and after growing up Judith had to get away from her entirely.

Like Jeannette’s mother, her mother never kept enough food in the house. As she recently told me, “If there was cereal there was no milk. I went hungry much of the time.” However, her mother always had dinner ready for step dad when he came home from work, so she was assured at least one good meal a day. At the age of 5, like Jeannette, she used to try to cook her own breakfast, only she didn’t catch on fire like Jeannette had. Judith remembers burning the potatoes on the stove, and if you are hungry that is something that you never forget.

Judith wished to read this book this year at our book group, along with Killers of Flower Moon, so we chose both for our book group. We are now reading this book, but Judith will never get to read either book, because last month she began dying.

Unlike her mother Judith fed the poor, and volunteered at the homeless shelter and the food pantry, Feed my Sheep, and the Humane Society. Her last paying job was helping abused women at Help in Crisis.

She taught me so much in life; I will miss her, and I already do. I will remember her for her kindness and generosity, and for teaching me Native American ways, for introducing me to the writings of Chief Dan George.

Every morning when I can and when she is up to it, I go to her house and we sit on the front porch drinking coffee while visiting for an hour or less. Sometimes, I ask her questions about her life that I have forgotten, because now is when I have come to realize how important these stories were. We must never lose people’s own stories, especially those of loved ones.

I saw a poppy growing out of a hole of rusted faucet at a café in Cayucos, CA. last week when my husband and I were at our family reunion. The flower must have found some soil in the darkness of the inside wall in the patio and headed towards the light. I thought of Judith, how she had lived with a mother that was like that rusty faucet, and how she had struggled to survive, just to grow up and become a beautiful person, a flower. I told her about the flower, and I gave her the photo that had been taken. She was as grateful as she always is when people do things for her or who compliment her. I never told her that there had been two flowers, one was dead, and how I thought that the other one was her body, while the beautiful alive one was her soul, her essence. Even as she is dying she asked me about my dog and how she was doing and was sadden that we had to put our dog to sleep. Or she would ask me how my sister was doing whose husband had just died, a sister who missed our family reunion. And she always asked about me and my husband, as well as my cats.

This is often the story that I have heard from the homeless where I live. What little they have is always being taken away from them, stolen. I know a homeless man that had his bike stolen, and when he got a new one, my husband and I bought him a bike lock. Then both were stolen. Then there was another homeless person, a woman who slept in her truck with 2 or 3 small dogs. She was walking down the street one night and was robbed. It was hard for her to get her IDs back so she could get money out of her bank account, so Judith took her around town so she could get what she needed.

(Judith Wade Anderson: September 13, 1942 to July 27, 2018 at 7:30 a.m.)