The Glass Castle (Memoir)

I'll start with one of my favorite books, The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls). Everyone I know that has read this book has been absolutely floored by it. Thinking about whining about your "messed up" childhood? Let me stop you right there. You don't know what a messed up childhood is until you've read this book...and yet...Jeannette Walls never asks you to feel sorry for her. She doesn't feel sorry for herself. You know the stinky kid in class? That was Walls. But even while describing a life lived on a garbage pile (literally), she maintains her dignity and sense of humor.

I would call The Glass Castle a must read. It would be great if this became required high school reading (be nice to the stinky kid because you have NO idea!).

Click the link below to see Jeanette Walls discussing her book (you also get to meet her mother!). Judith and I were lucky enough to go to a book reading she gave. Excellent speaker. She really would not say anything bad about her parents...unbelievable...but inspiring!

I'll learn to upload...download(?) a video later (cough cough Chad cough cough).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJuaJj94Pmg&feature=related

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Freelance writer Walls doesn't pull her punches. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus—they'd "pick up a little Spanish without even studying." Why feed their pets? They'd be helping them "by not allowing them to become dependent." While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Buck-toothed Jeannette even tried making her own braces when she heard what orthodontia cost. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure."
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