The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle is an entertaining and somewhat disturbing memoir about really bad parenting. What's interesting is that while the parents are objectively terrible, Walls portrays her childhood as a rather heroic and engaging adventure. It's not that she doesn't acknowledge that parents that barely feed their children are bad parents, but the book still shows the ways in which she had freedom and learned remarkable self reliance. I was far more coddled as a child, and I'd say I am far more fearful as an adult. (May or may not indicate causality.)

Should the kids all have been taken away by social workers? Probably. And yet, they seem to have turned out pretty well, at least according to the book.

Anyway, if you ever complain about your childhood this is a handy reality check. If it's worse than Walls' was, you've definitely got the right to complain!

Very entertaining and well written.

Nature vs. nurture. It's a long-standing debate. I personally think nurture has a more to do with how you turn out as a person, but Jeannette Walls might have just proved me wrong.

This is the story of growing up with two parents who, to put it nicely, both have issues. My armchair psychiatrist degree says they both just might be mentally ill. Definitely co-dependent. And really bad parents. Jeannette and her siblings grow up roaming from place to place as her parents run from people of the real and imaginary sort. They are poor, and hungry, and really don't seem to realize how crazy their upbringing truly is. I can't believe no one stepped in and helped these kids, but I'm sure there are families right now who have it just as bad or worse and are under the radar like them.

This book made me mad. And sad. I realize it could have been worse for the Walls children. But what was there was bad enough. Now get off the computer, go hug a loved one, and be grateful for all that you have. It's a miracle Jeannette Walls grew up to make something of herself, so her nature won out over the terrible nurture she received. 4 stars for Jeannette and a virtual high five from me.

This is a sad, hurtful, yearning, ever-hopeful, page-turning story that in its own way is truly a gem. With that said, I want to get one thing straight: not a single page went by that I did not want to slap the living hell out of Jeannette's mom. Not in a hurtful way, not in a Neanderthal way, but in a way that can only be universally understood as what-the-HELL-are-you-doing-you-idiot.

To get one more thing out the way, if you enjoy one of the following then this book's right up your alley:

(1) Vignettes of a grown woman lounging around all day, saying pseudo-intellectual one-liners, over, and over.
(2) Homelessness fueled mostly in part by the aforementioned.
(3) The complete nonexistence of instinctual child rearing skills.
(4) Borderline adult craziness (or, disassociation with damn near everything modern).
(5) The sneaking (and eating) of food when your kids are four feet away, starving.

Real foundations for a good memoir, if you ask me.

One of the first things you'll notice when you start to read this is the way everything is plainly-spoken and spelled out in simple language. Walls is no McCarthy or DFW. But don't fret, this is done on purpose. In this case the actions and scenes are the main drive, the real page-turner, and also the sparse-but-hard-hitting conversation (kind of like Raymond Carver does in all his short stories).

Jeannette and her sister and brother (and soon after her much-younger other sister) face what probably only 2% of the population haveto face, in terms of complete and total dishevelment and depravity almost as soon as they left the womb. Their dad is a whiz at physics and calculations, and their mother is a self-proclaimed artist and writer--and their both crazy; but not totally crazy, only in a slight sense, kind of like a rogue hippy, or how pudding develops a hard layer atop its sweet interior, dooming them to forever live life as nomads and wanderers while still retaining mass amounts of knowledge and wonder (it's enough to make you want to slap them at times, though, and grab them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them).

I really won't get into detail in this summary, partly because I don't feel like it, but I will say that Jeannette and her siblings did an extraordinary job of making it through all the extreme hardships they faced (and, trust me, there were plenty).

This book did something to me: it cemented a sort of idea that nothing in my life is as bad as it seems, and I can get through it, and that I can keep on getting through it, because nothing that has happened to me can shake a stick at what Jeannette's been through.