The Glass Castle: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1031 reviews
Sales Rank: 108
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 0.4
ISBN: 074324754X
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.82092
EAN: 9780743247542
ASIN: 074324754X
Publication Date: January 9, 2006
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Amazon.com
Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover. --Brangien Davis
Product Description
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town -- and the family -- Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home. What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms. For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. Now she tells her own story. A regular contributor to MSNBC.com, she lives in New York and Long Island and is married to the writer John Taylor. TO INQUIRE ABOUT SCHEDULING JEANNETTE WALLS FOR SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS PLEASE CONTACT: Keppler Speakers
Dustin L. Jones
Associate, College & University Division
703.516.4000 (P)
703.516.4819 (F)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1026 more reviews...
 An Homage To Her Parents May 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"The Glass Castle" is a memoir written by gossip columnist Jeanette Walls, which details her unconventional childhood growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who seems to be mentally ill. Walls begins the book by explaining what has prompted her to write about her family: after she has "made it" and become a successful writer living in New York, she comes across her mother picking trash out of a dumpster and, in shame, slinks down in her taxi seat and pretends not to see or know her. Later, Walls confronts her mother, asking what she is supposed to tell people about her parents, and her mother replies, "Just tell the truth. That's simple enough."
Of course, "The Glass Castle" is anything but simple, as Walls attempts to come to terms with her upbringing. The first third of the memoir deals with her young childhood on the west coast, as her parents live as nomads, moving frequently between desert towns, always seeking the next adventure. Walls' mother is the key figure we meet here: an artist and a writer, she seems to live in her own world and doesn't express much concern in the practical realities of raising her children. In a key passage, Walls' mother takes the kids with her to give them art lessons, as she paints and studies the Joshua tree. Walls tells her mother of her plan to dig up the tree, replant it, and protect it so it can go straight. Walls' mother admonishes her, "You'd be destroying what makes it special. It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives its beauty." This appears to be Walls' mother's philosophy of life - looking for the next struggle - as the family willingly gives up its nice residence in Phoenix that Walls' mother had inherited from her family to move to the father's home town - a depressed coal town in West Virginia.
The family's time in West Virginia makes up the next third of the story and depicts a depressed life in a depressed town. It is in West Virginia where the family seems to drift apart, particularly Walls' father, who up to this point, had been worshipped and revered by his daughter. Like Walls' mom, her dad has a lot of imagination; while he takes odd jobs that never last long, his real dream is to strike it rich with one of his inventions. He promises, once he has found his gold, that he is going to build a "glass castle" - his most special project - a great big house for the family to live in. Once in West Virginia, Walls and her brother figure they will make the best of the situation, and they spend a month digging a hole in the ground to serve as the foundation for the glass castle. But because the family can't pay for trash collection, their father instructs them instead to use the hole for the family's garbage. Although she has always been her father's defender, Walls grows disillusioned with her father, eventually telling him he will never build the glass castle.
Determined not to end up like her parents, Walls moves to New York, where the last third of the book transpires. It is here that Walls "makes it," graduating from college, gaining employment as a writer, marrying a rich husband, and settling into a Park Avenue apartment. Interestingly, while Walls has rejected her parents' lifestyle, it is now their turn to reject hers. Her father refuses to visit the Park Avenue apartment, while her mother, after visiting the apartment, asks Walls, "Where are the values I raised you with?" At this point, it is a mystery what values Walls actually possesses. By crafting the memoir around stories of her childhood, we as readers are often troubled, not just because of the content of the stories but because the stories don't provide much in the way of reflection or introspection. It is, in fact, unclear what Walls actually does value - will she continue to identify success with the material trappings of her "normal" life in New York, or will she ultimately reject the conventional life, as her parents did? Without more reflection from Walls, particularly in this concluding section of the book, readers are left to their own interpretation of "the truth" about her parents - are they just a drunk father and a lazy mother, or is there something more to it?
The "Glass Castle" is an addicting page-turner that should captivate any reader. However, without this reflection and introspection from Walls about her childhood, the book misses an opportunity to make a more lasting impact on readers and ultimately fails to reach the level of a work like "Angela's Ashes." In the end, it is up to readers to make up their own minds about "the truth" of Walls' parents and her upbringing and what it all means. I chose to discount some of her parents' flaws and instead read this book as an homage to her parents. To me, the key passage in the book is when Walls visits a classmate's home in West Virginia and sees the empty walls in the house (in stark contrast to her own home, which is cluttered with paintings and books and decorations) and rejects the notion that her classmate's father, passed out on the couch, bares any resemblance to her own father. In recounting the story to her family, Walls' mother replies that she should show compassion for her classmate because not everybody has "all the advantages you kids do." Although the statement is ironic on its face, as the family fights over the crumbs of a chocolate bar, the distinction is clear: Walls' family may not provide her with much in the way of tangible goods, but they give her things that are more lasting - a belief in herself, a passion for reading and writing, an appreciation for things a lot of us take for granted, and most of all love. In the end, it was not important whether her parents actually built her a glass castle. It was that they gave her the idea of a glass castle. By overcoming her shame for her parents and writing this memoir, Walls seems to recognize this truth about her parents - that, like the Joshua tree, there was beauty in their struggle.
 Amazing! May 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book. I grabbed it at the aiport to read and couldn't put it down.
 Do people like this book because it makes them feel better about themselves? May 20, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've experienced a number of different reactions while reading this book. My first is that it reminds me of some of VC Andrews earlier works of fiction - such as the "Flowers in the Attic" series. It's almost all too unbelievable. How can someone lived such a life?
I also had a hard time understanding how Jeannette really felt about her parents. When we are children, we tend to have full faith in what our parents tell us. Right, wrong, or indifferent, we are raised to obey our parents and that they know what's good for us. In my eyes, Jeannette's parents were never competent or responsible parents. They seemed to do nothing but put all of their children's lives in constant danger. It wasn't until towards the end of the book that she finally started challenging their authority, and the way the book is written, she seems to almost glamorize how her parents always maintained a positive attitude towards the situations that they themselves put themselves in.
If it was me writing this story, I'd be bitter, and it's hard for me to understand how Jeannette isn't.
And Love? Other than the children looking out for another, I never really felt like her parents showed real love towards them. (Or to each other.) Love does not mean giving up, and it seems like her parents pretty much when they moved to WV. I sense nothing but indifference, impatience, and selfishness.
Did I like the book? Truthfully, it's like watching a train wreck. One bad thing follows the next. Is is supposed to make me feel better about my own life? more thankful? I'm not really sure.
I think Augusten Burroughs tells a better dysfunctional family story...
Astounding to see how Walls' family lived and more astounding to see why May 20, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book left me, literally, slack-jawed at so many points while reading it. It also left me wondering, how many of the poor families in our country and in our world are poor for reasons similar to Walls'?
Jeanette Walls tells the story of growing up with a drunk, but oddly caring father and a sober, but oddly uncaring mother. The narrative starts in the deserts of the western United States, takes you through West Virginia and eventually to New York City. What happens along the way will have you shaking your head in disbelief.
What struck me most wasn't how poor Walls' family was, although they were amazingly poor (she and her sister shared a stick of butter for dinner one night because it was the last food in the house), but why they were poor. Walls' parents are both very clearly talented and educated people. Her father fails the family due to drunkenness, but her mother fails the family out of a seeming insistence on staying as destitute as possible, even when opportunities present themselves; it's almost as if she feels most comfortable at the bottom of the heap because it leaves nowhere else to fall.
The whole story leaves you wondering what percentage of those living in poverty have similar situations and what could possibly be done to help such a person. Walls makes the point poignantly when she tells the story of sitting in class at Barnard College in New York. The professor (who doesn't know Walls' background) asks her class whether they think people who live in poverty are there because of a lack of opportunity. When Walls answers that she thinks some people are poor because of the choices they make and their unwillingness to compromise, the professor comes out from behind her podium, visibly shaking with anger, and asks accusingly, "What do you know about living in poverty?" Thought-provoking stuff.
Highly recommended for a look into a lifestyle that I sincerely hope is hard for most of us to comprehend.
See a dysfunctional family function tthru this "glass" memoir. May 19, 2008
People are spunky and inventive when they have to live by their wits.
Parents who seem irresponsible actually bring up bright, cheerful,productive children. Well written --- a fun read.
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