Book Review: The Glass Castle

*While this post is mostly a review of The Glass Castle (a
memoir of Jeannette Walls’s childhood), it also incorporates ideas inspired by
Half Broke Horses (a true-life novel by Jeannette Walls’ about the life of her
maternal grandmother and the childhood of her mother). The two books are a lot
like “prequel” and “sequel” of the same work to me.

The Glass Castle probably made it to the best seller list
for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons certainly has to be because of
the gripping narrative that it tells. From the first scene in which a
3-year-old Jeannette catches on fire while boiling hot dogs (her mother
explains that children need to learn self-reliance from an early age) and is
then “rescued” early from the hospital by her father -who is always running
from one problem or debt collector to the next- you know that she is in for one
heck of a childhood. Near the end of the novel, when a teenage Jeannette and
her siblings struggle to put every penny they can into an “escape” fund only to
have it raided by their alcoholic father, I was invested in the Walls’ story
and struggle.

I think what really intrigued me though -what I haven’t been
able to stop thinking about since- were the larger-than-life characters –precisely
because they were not, in fact “larger-than-life” but because they were as
“real life” as it comes. Watching an interview with the author, she said that
one of the things that struck her most while researching the life of Lily
Casey, as extraordinary as her exploits may seem to us now, was how “common”
Lily’s story was for that day and age. She also discussed how, while the
actions of others may be hard to understand at surface level, the answers to
why people do the things that they do can often be found by taking a look into
their past. Rose Mary Walls’, Jeannette’s mother, a well-informed,
college-educated woman, raised by an extremely resourceful mother, but unable
to hold down a steady job. Rex Walls’, Jeannette’s father, with his sharp intelligence,
big dreams, and insatiable curiosity, but largely controlled by his destructive
addictions. Looking at Rose Mary’s upbringing explains a lot; her childhood,
spent exploring an enormous ranch, was characterized by freedom and adventure
–ideals she continued to seek as an adult. What’s more, Rose Mary’s generation,
which is also the generation of my own mother (and I’ve drawn several parallels
between the two women), lived to see the “wild places” of their childhoods be
tamed; literally, as The West was developed and modernized, but perhaps
figuratively as well. They seemed to live in this special window where children
were no longer seen as “little adults,” meant to start pulling their weight
from an early age, but before modern parenting advice forbade giving a good
spank or advised against letting your children roam free. This generation also
grew up under the threat of the atom bomb, and I wonder if that wouldn’t have
led to a certain sense of resignation or helplessness against the “powers that
be.” Contrasting Rose Mary’s approach to life with that of her mother’s, Lily
Casey’s, the differences are obvious. Granted, Lily Casey was never the “free
spirit” that Rose Mary was, but she also learned early on that survival was a
struggle, sentimentality a weakness she couldn’t afford. So, the point is that
it’s led me to think a lot about the importance of the context in which we grow
and live, particularly of the generation to which we belong.

At the same time, and maybe in direct contrast to this idea,
is the idea that life is what we choose to take away from it –despite the
context of our upbringing. The case in point here being Jeannette Walls who
became a best-selling author and apparently lives an emotionally healthy life
(now living with and taking care of her mother). In that same author interview,
Walls explains that she sometimes hears her memoir read aloud in angry tone
–even though she wouldn’t read her own words in that way. And while her younger
brother, as an adult, demanded an apology from their mother, Wall’s decided not
to see herself as needing to “forgive” anyone –thereby framing herself as the
victim. The best example is probably found in the book’s title; Walls explained
that while mention of their father’s “glass castle” evokes feeling of
bitterness and disappointment in her siblings, she now sees it as the promise
that kept her going, a representation of her hope for a better future.

And a third theme that I want to just briefly touch on
is that while we may “get the life we want” (like Walls commented in one of her
college courses while thinking of her homeless parents), it is rarely that
simple. Walls (again in the interview) explained that as she grew to understand her
mother better, she realized that Rose Mary was lacking in some very basic skills
required to hold down a job. She came to the conclusion that her mother may
have been, like she explained to Wall’s younger brother when he demanded an
apology, doing the best that she could in a difficult situation. The
implications here about the judgments we may pass on others who live in
conditions of poverty seem pretty clear.

So I guess I’ve come up with a bunch of seemingly
contradictory ideas and conclusions. Weird how often that seems to happen to me.
I’m starting to think that maybe the whole truth of something is usually a
combination of its two, seemingly opposite halves. But since I’m pretty sure I’m
not quite up to that level philosophizing, we’ll call it a day.
Here is that link to the Jeannette Walls interview I kept referring to:
Jeannette Walls Interview