Erin's Book #14: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

I hadn't heard of this memoir until Blythe mentioned it her blog post(s?). She seemed to feel pretty strongly about it, so I added it to my library queue. I can understand why now.

I couldn't stop talking about this book. I read the first line, "I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a dumpster," to at least three different people. Halfway through, I called my mom and convinced her to buy it (she's a quarter through and loving it).

It is so hard to imagine that this actually happened. Jeannette and her three siblings follow their sometimes casually employed parents around the country, living in trailers or shacks when times are good, sleeping outside or in their car when they're not. They occasionally subsist on popcorn or sticks of margarine or maggot-infested meat. The children learn to scavenge through school trash cans for lunch. Their most extravagant Christmas allows them to spend $1 at a thrift store on gifts for their family. It is simply put the most awful, neglectful, abusive, and poverty-stricken childhood I've ever read about.

There are several quotes from critics that reference Jeannette's free pass to complain about her life. The magic of the book is that she doesn't use it. As a child, Jeannette is an eternal optimist, rarely losing faith in her alcoholic father, always believing that something great is going to happen (the titular glass castle is such a great metaphor, I can't help but wonder if it's really factual). Her parents are surprisingly intelligent, her father especially, and the shocker is that they live this lifestyle by choice. They're both capable of much more. They just don't want it. And during the brief moments where her father does want more, he succumbs to the bottle, erasing any progress they may have made.

For years, Jeannette embraces this life. She loves living in the desert and the freedom that accompanies being able to just pick up in the middle of the night and take off. In many ways, she actually looks up to her father. As a reader, it's an interesting experience. Jeannette rarely tempers her memories with her adult viewpoint, so we see the "adventure" through her childish eyes, yet of course we simultaneously judge her parents.

As Jeannette and her brother and sisters grow up and settle in West Virginia, their awareness grows. This may be the lifestyle their parents chose, but the children don't want it anymore. As awful as it is to read about the defenseless kids being dragged around the country, it's even worse to know that the only thing in the world they want is to escape and they are powerless to do so.

I agree with Blythe. You have no business reading any other memoir until you read this one. It's mesmerizing and heart-breaking.