This memoir by Jeannette Walls leads the reader through her dysfunctional family as a child to an adult, with the mixed feelings that go along with that journey. Again, the first sentence of this book caught my attention and kept me reading. “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.” Jeannette slinks down in her seat to avoid her mother seeing her and turns around to go home to her apartment on Park Avenue.
Jeannette’s father is a very intelligent man who tries whatever invention and scheme that he can to strike it rich…which also results in moving time and time again so that the family is never settled. Her mother is a teacher but turns her back to holding a regular job and having a “regular” life. Their children are often left to their own means, to feed and care for themselves. In fact the book officially starts with Jeannette catching herself on fire at age three while cooking.
It is a hard life. One that is made even harder by the realization as they get older that their parents are choosing the life for their family…not out of necessity but because it is what they want. They find out that their mom owns land in Texas that she was holding onto, rather than selling to support the family. Yet the author stays loyal to her parents throughout this time. She is able to capture her childhood with humor and these memories are what makes this a story. In one exchange a boy calls her dad a drunk, just like his, and she replies, “My daddy is nothing like your daddy. When my daddy passes out, he never pisses himself!
As the children grow older they become more disillusioned with their parents. They try to get their dad to stop using their money on alcohol and whatever else so that they can use it for food. One by one the children graduate and move to New York City. Several years later her parents follow their children to keep the family close together and end up being homeless. The author explains the different feelings you experience when you are living in comfort and your parents are not. She expresses the trouble of trying to discover who you are and where you belong when you come from very different worlds.
This was a wonderful memoir and I enjoyed all that it had to offer. It makes me think that it’s a shame that I didn’t write down more about my childhood when I was young because there is no way that i could recall events with the clarity and detail that Jeannette Walls did in The Glass Castle.
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