Mom stood 15 feet away, rags around her shoulders to keep out the spring chill and picking through the trash.
I read The Glass Castle - A Memoir last November while still living in North Las Vegas and had a very clear knowledge of the places Jeannette Walls spoke of in it. Her eventual move to Welch, West Virginia, then took her close enough to Pittsburgh where I’d spent eight years. As the author described her surroundings, I mentally moved along with her. This helped me to relate fully to this book. But that's where the similarities ended.…
Article comments
26 - Lillian
I can see what you are getting at. I guess there are some places in the book where it does seem a little amazing that what she described actually happened. Memoirs are a hard subject to approach because everyone remembers things differently. Even my mom, sister, and brother have varying opinions about what happened to them when they were kidnapped. My mom knows what happened to her, but her real father doesn't want to believe that half of the things that happened to her are true, so he ignores them, and pretends like nothing ever happened. I get a lot of this in my family; people pretending like things never happened, which is frustrating, and quite frankly, makes me feel kind of like I am left out of a lot of crucial family stories/ business.
The point I am trying to make is, that the only truth we know as people is our own. What is true for Walls may not have been true for her siblings or her parents. The only accurate way to tell a memoir is to have it be written from five different points of view, of all the people you intend to include in it, but then again, that wouldn't really be a memoir, and the stories would all be so vastly different that the book would have no order or sense to it at all.
I would argue that no one has ever truly written an authentic memoir or auto biography because there is no way of capturing the ultimate truth when there are so many interpretations of it. In regards to Walls, I think that she wrote the best that she could, given the fact that she had so many repressed memories and probably still has a hard time dealing with those feelings, even though she claims that she is numb to them.
I know that is I were to sit down and write about my family one day there would be a lot of contradictions. My family is full of odd dark secrets and layers of lies they would prefer still stay lies. How do you think it feels for me to live my life in a family, where half of my relatives deny what happened and the other half just make jokes about it? It makes me feel crappy, to be honest. No one ever wants to take our problems seriously, except for my grandfather, but I rarely get to talk to him. I knew that if I wrote a memoir I'd start off by saying, "I'd really like to tell you about my family, but I've been raising myself and my sister since I was eight years old, and do know anything about anyone else because it is privileged information I never had any access to. All I know is that growing up in a Norwegian family, everyone always had a worse life than I could ever hope to have and I shouldn't waste my time complaining about it."
27 - Ginger Haycox
Lillian:
Yes you're so right! Even within my own family how things touched them are retold in a much different matter. But they still overlap & basically concur with fact on the larger picture. My grandmother for instance, will tell you my father wasn't an alcoholic,that he just enjoyed a good time & a drink often. But it amounts to the same thing...he drank himself to death. With Walls, her siblings didn't want to touch what she said in her book because I think they perhaps didn't want to be perceived as calling her a liar in public.
However, there were a number of child psychologists who studied the book & said it was virtually impossible for a child of 2 or 3 to remember in such detail the things she 'recalled' in her book. Especially things that most children cared nothing about in the first place...like the color of a relatives house or whether an aunt was on a diet?
It really can be picked apart if you can get past the emotion it pulls from the reader.
28 - Lillian
No memoir is perfect, but there are a few that I have read that have been pretty amazing and life changing (regardless of truthful content). I will give you my humble list of memoirs I would strongly urge you as well as others to read.
Red Azalea
Fun House
The Complete Persepolis (Persepolis Parts 1 and 2)
Dreams Of Trespass: Tales of A Harem Girlhood
Reading Lolita In Tehran
She's Not There
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Liar's Club
Glass Castle
Those are listed in the order of my appreciation for them. I believe that they each talk about life in a way that I have never personally seen portrayed before. It's good to get different points of view on a subject, even if the subject is embellished, a few names are changed, and things didn't occur exactly as they did in real life.
I think one thing that must be taken into consideration when reading a memoir (or autobiography), is that the people writing them are writers. Writers make their whole carrers off of embellishing the truth in some form, whether it be in the form of fiction writing, nonfiction writing, or poetry.
That being said, the most important thing to do is look at the story you are reading a a whole and get a sense of what the person went through without holding onto the specific details, like what color a person's dress was when they went to a funeral. Memories often deceive us in the details, but the general ideas are all there. If you look at a memoir in this way, then it is easier to view it as a work of nonfiction that is representative of many of the lives that ordinary people live.
29 - Kurt-Sophmore
As you said that Jeannette didn't have any emotions about other kids taunting her, and that she didnt have feelings about her house sliding of of 95 Hobart St. but indeed you are wrong. She tells in the story that she asked brian to help her build a rig to throw rocks. To me this shows that Jeannette and Brian both cared very much about their living situation as also shown later in the book where Jeannette confronts her mom about how the family is constantly living. I would also like to point out that if this was a memoir than it could not be fictional. So i would encourage to see the story from her point of view, and to see that their are children in africa that live just like this. its is not something that she is pround about at all but rather being able to accept what has happened and moving on
30 - Brittany
i think that this book was amazing. Ginger Haycox, there are a lot of different possibilities for why Jeannette was capable of remembering certain details and coversations. one of which is that maybe she had diary, in which she wrote down things she felt wee important in her life.
As for her lack of emotion in her writting, she grew up in a very hard way! or all she might have known, everyother kid in he world had to go throug the same things as her.
Maybe she did feel emotion to the things that happened to her growing up, but didnt feel they were pertinant to te novel. I personally wouldn't care to hear about she was hingry every 25 seconds, because it would get boaring.
31 - kopo
ur have no idea what u r taling about
32 - Ginger Haycox
kopo, I won't even grace that with any response other than to ask why you think you know better than I do?
33 - Daniel Tang
Ginger, I can spend a lot of time quoting things you have said and things said in the book to completely tear apart your book review and comments but I do not want to waste my time doing that. I will address a few points though.
"You can't relive these types of things no matter how tough we are without some modicum of emotion breaking through; especially if you are having to tell it again in detail for a book."
Who are you to make a statement like that? How do you know what people can and can't do? That would be like me saying: "You can't kill someone and not feel bad." Where is my proof? I can't possibly know that as a fact just like you can't know your statement is fact.
"As for her 'allowing' her mother to root through trash bins on the streets of NYC, I still can't swallow that she's just "letting Mom continue her adventure". "
If you had read the first few pages of the book, you would know that Jeanette tried to give her mom money, but all her mom wanted was "an electrolysis treatment". How do you help someone live better if they're going to spend their money like that anyways? Her mom does NOT want to have a higher standard of living, she likes it the way it is.
"There are other things that are just too silly to believe, rich or poor. Like trying to make braces for her teeth because they were crooked. Any kid I've met that was walking barefoot to school in winter snow, wasn't worried about whether they were going to grow up with straight teeth!"
Once again, how do you just say that she can't possibly have been worried about her teeth? How do you know what other people think? There's probably tons of kids out there who are dirt poor and still worry about their teeth. Just because you have no money means you don't want to look good? Really?
"How do you propose she do that? If her own daughter, with all her money doesn't make efforts to pay for the help she needs to get well & off the streets eating out of dumpsters, then who?"
And again, if you had read the book you would not be saying this. 1st of all, she inherited land that is worth almost a million dollars (number from the book) when her mother died. Also, she has all of these antiques (fruitwood bows, diamond rings, etc.) that she could easily sell and make quite a bit of money. Also, she had a teaching degree and even used it for a few periods of time but she is too lazy to work and too proud to do what her mother suggested she do in the first place: teach. She has had many many chances to live a better life and it would be quite easy for her to build a life if she desired to do that. She chooses to give up these opportunities and live as a "squatter".
"I have worked with the organizations in NY & in Philadelphia & my husband & I are doing so right now over the holidays. There are none - N.O.N.E., who prefer that life to one affording them the pure animal comforts like warm clothing & a clean bed to sleep in."
So the few people you've worked with in Philadelphia and NY can serve as a proper representation of all the homeless people in USA? I think not. If you do, then so be it, but I would call that extremely ignorant.
"Volunteer your services over this holiday season why don't you? It's quite an education. Then come back & tell me again (providing we're to believe the book) just how much respect you have for a woman who can leave her mother on the streets of NYC."
Once again, I must tell you to read the book. In the FIRST chapter, she tells us that she's tried to help her mother out multiple times but her mother doesn't desire help and tells her “You want to help me change my life? I’m fine. You’re the one who needs help. Your values are all confused.” It is fairly clear that her mother does not want help and prefers to live her own life as a squatter.
"I was left side paralyzed & have fought for eight years to get the use of my arm & hand back. If I had to write a book about that today, it certainly wouldn't be without emotion. Character means you're stronger, Lillian, not that you're an emotional zombie."
How can you call Jeanette "an emotional zombie"? It takes a lot of control to be able to write a story that is direct and honest like that. The fact that she can tell her story like that indicates that she has a very strong will. You, on the other hand, clearly don't. If you were to write a story of your life, I can just tell that you would tell it "with lots of emotion", in other words, whining.
"My other query is why she didn't feel a need to write this book at all until her new husband told her she stood to make loads of money by doing it & got her a writing coach?"
She was trying to HIDE the fact that her parents were the way they were. How would you feel, working with people in the upper-classes while your parents were poor? Would you want to tell that story and risk losing contacts in the business world, and the respect of others?
In conclusion, I believe that you are clearly jealous. The story is about the struggle to survive, and the strength of will power and poverty, not about a grown woman whining about her poor past. You clearly fail to grasp the main idea of the story [personal attack deleted]. If you think that the book was "embellished" and lacks emotion, why not write your own BETTER memoir? I'm sure if you did that, you would get MUCH MUCH MUCH more fame and respect than Jeanette Walls, who's memoir is clearly faked and does not deserve anything. Stop whining on here and go ahead write your own story.
34 - Daniel Tang
Also, do not bother responding, I have effectively revealed your true intentions in writing this review. You are jealous. I am not coming back to this site. Good luck and have fun ;)
35 - Ginger Haycox
Jealous? Okay, Daniel, whatever you say. I'm burning inside with gut turning envy...lol! That just goes beyond logic, but you're entitled to your analysis of my motives. =/
I wrote a review of a book. Understand the premise...it was what I, as a reader, took away from what I read. Right or wrong - whether others would agree or disagree, never entered my head while putting my thoughts down. I wrote what I felt about the book after reading it. Me personally.
That does allow others to say they don't agree & that they enjoyed the book. I'm glad they did...I'm truly happy for them. I hate spending money on a book & being disappointed by it. But I still feel the same way. I'm not trying to make them change their minds - I'm not attacking them for feeling as they do. And most everyone here who have responded, have given very reasonable (& polite)reasons for feeling as they do - usually drawn from personal experience.
I read the book while drawing from my own personal experiences as well...& my feelings about the book haven't changed.