First of all, don't read this review if you haven't read the book. Because you have to read the book. It's best if you just pick it up and start without knowing anything about it. The stories Jeanette Wells tellas are so captivating, so mesmerizing, and ultimately so disturbing, you cannot tear yourself away. At the end of each chapter, I'd be screaming, "No WAY!! Tell me another one!!" The most absurd vignette was the one about the U-Haul. All four kids in the back of the U-Haul, the baby a week old, and the doors fly open on the freeway. Those were some tough kids!
I loved the first part of the book, when the family moved from town to town in the West. Some of her experiences, I think, were actually quite normal for that time period and that place, and were indicative of a certain strength her parents instilled in her. Maybe that strength ultimately got her through her later childhood in West Virginia. Some of the incidents actually seemed to demonstrate the parents' love for their children, especially the father's love. I believe the father loved his children deeply, and did his very best for them. The turning point, however, was when he tried to detox for Jeanette and later fell off the wagon. That failure broke him, I think.
The last half of the book was far more disturbing to me than the first half, because of the mother's complete descent into insanity and the father's hopeless alcoholism. It bothered me that the HAD property in Arizona AND Texas, yet they were mired in poverty, deprivation and filth theat they somehow could not escape. Those were not the same people who had jumped ship countless times when things got tough in the West. I lost hope in the parents along with Jeanette, and they infuriated me, even as I grew to understand why they were the way they were.
In the end, The Glass Castle is a story of redemption, and it does come. It's really a testament to the love the father demonstrated to his children in their early years that they all escaped the cycle of poverty they fell into. Along with his love, he gave them knowledge. They were extremely bright and resourceful, and it served them well.
I came away with an empathy for alcoholics and those who suffer from mental illness, but also a rage that those social ills can so handily destroy generations. I came away with love for the father and anger toward the mother, becaause he loved his children and failed, but she was indifferent to them, which was the larger failure, in my opinion. Granted, she had her own demons.
Anyway, discussions about society's ills aside, I think The Glass Castle is a brilliant book, one I thoroughly enjoyed reading, and one I highly recommend if you like page turners. Don't be turned off by the subject matter, because it's not completely depressing like Angela's Ashes. In this book, there is a phoenix. Four, actually, and they rise high from the ashes of their parents' legacy. The story of their journey is well worth your time.
Posted by Circe at 8:13 PM
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9 comments:
Hi Circe,
I really liked your review. I came away very angry with both parents. I agree with you that before they moved to West Virginia they seemed to really try to raise their children with as much nurture as they could muster. At least the father did. The mother seemed to have withdrawn and given up even then. Maybe it was too much for her to live with an alcoholic that tried to kill her on several occasions in front of the children, and took any money they had for his addiction. Even then she was burying things in the ground to try and keep something. I was saddened, though, that she could not venture out of her depression enough to care about or provide for her children.
The father really seemed to love his children and protect them in his dysfunctional way until they moved to Welch. He came along just in time to pull them from the burning shed, took Jeanette from the hospital to "protect and keep her", etc. In Welch, though he not only did not provide for and protect them, he actually gave his verbal consent to a man who wanted to rape her in order to make a little money. He also stole the grocery money the mother had left the kids for the summer and the royalty check that came in. He had been taking the money away from them for years, I'm sure, but it was the final low point to steal the money from the kids. Maybe he tried to steal the get-away money so they wouldn't leave him, but more likely he had just sunk low enough by then to take anything.
There was such irony throughout the book. It was ironic that they lived in such poverty while the mom was sitting on so much oil rich land. It was also ironic that the father would never let them accept public help. No member of their family would ever be on welfare, but it was ok to dive through garbage cans and dumpsters and to starve and go without basic necessities.
It was a very compelling book that I couldn't put down. Just when you thought they had sunk to the lowest point, they found new avenues for hardship. I loved how three of the children seemed to be able to climb out of the cycle of poverty and dysfunction, and find meaningful lives.
Thanks for the review!
P.S. I am trying to find out how to return your other books to you. You are not listed??
Nadine
This story reminded me so much of a documentary program that I saw about the foster care program. Granted many foster parents are simply wonderful and amazing... I know some, but during this one interview this child said that even though her father was an addict and her mother was completely dysfunctional.. atleast she was their child and felt some kind of family attachment. As bad as it was.. I felt that there was some kind of family bond that held them together.
I didn't favor one parent over the other. I sort of felt that mother was completely insane from day 1. And, while the father had his moments of tenderness, his abuse, drunkeness, taking money and therefore food from his children, his affairs, attempted murder etc. .. I was sorry about where he came from but I just couldn't empathize with the character.
Most animals let alone human beings have this un-believable desire to help their children survive and even thrive.. These parents were missing that desire and it is incomprehensible.
And while the children probably should have been removed by the state.. they seemed to need each other so much and to help each other so that probably would have been wrong.
The great thing about the story is what you mentioned.. the ability of the human spirit to rise above. I thought the success of these children was an amazing and inspiring story! Thanks for the recommendation.
:)
If I hadn't actually seen a documentary on this woman and this book, I would have thought it was a complete over exaggeration. In the documentary, she took the interviewer to Welch, and showed them the shack she lived in (oh the horror!) and showed the railroad tracks they used to walk along to get the coal to warm their houses. She showed the dumpsters they used to dig through, and which ones were the "best ones" to get food from. It was appalling.
When I read the book, the images from that documentary made the book even more real to me. I couldn't understand why the state never took those kids away. Why did the teachers not report them? Were they so jaded and caloused that they just didn't care? In a different documentary that I saw about WV, it stated that 9 out of 10 students were on reduced breakfast/lunch programs--- with those 2 meals being the only meals they got in a day. I find that appalling in the united states--- the land of opportunity has such poverty!
I did, however, find myself feeling empathy towards the parents. Alcoholism is brutal disease, and it takes away all rational behavior. Having an alcoholic in my own family and hearing the stories... it is mind boggling. And very very sad. The mental illness that was her mother is another thing that, I think, was a direct result of the alcoholism. She had no way to cope... and escaped into her own mind. Perhaps that doesn't really excuse what was happening around, but for me, helped me to be less critical. I don't agree with the parents, (in fact i just wanted to grab them and shake some sense into them! all the while screaming what in the bloody hell are you THINKING?? get these kids some stability!) but having seen the affects of Alcoholism and the subsequent mental illness that can bring within my own family members, I suppose it gave me empathy??
I still squarely put blame on the state-- again, why did they not intervene?
The gem, really, of this story is that fact that she was able to rise above her childhood, her experiences and soar! She didn't get stuck there, in her past, as so many people do. She was able to acknowledge it, embrace it, and rise above it. That, to me, is the diamond here. We all have "stuff" that could bog us down... the challenge is to do as Jeannette did and take the good from the bad and just run with it. Never being ashamed (although at 1 point she was ashamed), just being grateful.
I could take a lesson from her... so I immediately went and cleaned my 3 bathrooms. Thanking God that I had indoor plumbing!
Wonderful read! I am going to go look to see if I can find some snippets from that documentary to post with my own review! Great choice!
I have to agree with Tiff that the state taking the kids away would not have been the answer, especially if the siblings had been separated. But what if someone had been there to recognize and treat the alcoholism or the depression? It does make me aware that people I come in contact with might be fighting demons so huge, I can't even imagine.
Great review. Unfortunately I came away thinking my kids will turn out just fine even if I don't parent them at all. I just don't think that's the message.
I have to agree with Paige...I just felt like I wasn't such a bad mom after all. I know it's terrible to compare...but parenthood is so full of overachievers that it is nice to hear about some underachievers! I did like the book, thanks for the recommendation!
Paige, I agree, though...what if we could parent that freely, and with that much attention to gaining knowledge, developing character and thinking for ourselves, but without the dysfunction? I don't think the author's message was, "Look at alll the bad things that happened to me." It was, "Look what an atypical childhood I had, then decide for yourself what was good and what was bad about it." Because there were some beautiful moments.
O.K., I read the book yesterday in almost one sitting since you gave it too me at that park so this is just coming from it pretty fresh.
I haven't read anyone else's reactions, I will go back and do that, my own:
Both disturbing and redeptive, and for me, very much like looking at a the opposite side of a symbolic "glass castle" except I get to live in mine.
It's never really clear what kind of mental illness the mother has, my guess would be bi-polar disorder, but it could have just been depression. Alcoholism is obviously much easier to identify, and as is the normal progression of the disease extremely easy to see progress.
Interestingly I wasn't angry at either parent, although I found the mother more frustrating, not really because of her, but more because of the parts of myself I could see in her. I think it's hard to truly understand mental illness if you haven't lived with it, but I think it's hard not to judge when you have and have come out on the other side. I wanted mom to just wake up and care, but I know, from being there, that isn't how depression works, and you could feel things going down as you turned each page.
Alcoholism I think people just understand more than we understand other mental illness because we can identify a cause, and something to blame, it's harder to figure our what to blame with mom, so you just end up wanting to blame her, and I don't think the "blame" really has a context here, it doesn't make sense. Untreated depression robs a person of their soul, inch by inch, day by day, week by week, in a much the same but on a different way than alcohol. I think the alcohol is crueler though because I think dad knew exactly what he was loosing to that disease, I don't think mom knew, I think she was truly so lost in her world she really thought she was a "good" mom and doing what was right by her kids.
I think that is Ms. Wall's tone was so pitch perfect, and wonderful. I could literally feel her own confusion of love, wonder, anger, disgust, ambivilence, and pride as she told the story of her family. I loved that she mentioned A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (I read that book 4 times from the age of 10-14) because I thought of that book from page one, she really did live the life of the real Francie Nolan (I want to read that book again).
I honestly almost skipped the West Virginia part, it hurt to much, although once you met dad's family a whole lot made sense. I kept wanting to just skip to the end (which considering was a memoir you knew something pretty good was coming), but it had to be read. It's amazing to know how low a bottom people can live in and still find a way out. It is mind boggling to know that their are kids living a life like this every single day, and probably a lot closer to me than I think. My heart broke knowing way in advance that dad would break the piggy bank, and steal the hard earned money, as well as watching all the "tough love" seep out as the author danced and helped her dad scam the man at the bar.
I remember during my worst depression wanting people to understand what it was really like, and at the same time knowing that you didn't want even your worst enemy to feel for a moment how horrifying it really is, the shadow of depression hovered over every page of this book, and it was really unsettling for me personally.
In the end I don't have much anger, just deep sadness for two people who may or may not have done their best, I just don't know, I don't know if anyone does, I wante to hate the parents, and I couldn't, which is exactly what I think the author wanted. What an amazing work of art that I could walk away feeling even a little bit of what she has to feel multiplied thousands of times. I felt great happiness for the ones that made it out, but I truly love the symbolism of the "glass castle", it's a beautiful, and shattering (like a glass castle would be) image in every level.
Really to me anyone that can see that world as one they can't even imgaine is so very blessed, for me, well there but for the grace of God go I. I found myself late last night adjusting my thermostat, with my heart pounding, and hugging my son, who hasn't had to learn much about certain kinds of "adventure", and know with certainty that he never will.
On the other hand, I might have found myself thinking rather smuggly, "there is no possible way I can mess up that bad as a parent so what am I so freaking stressed about".
Which I don't suppose was really the message at all.
Wow. Such insightful comments.
I read this book last fall during the quiet, latenight feedings of my newborn. His utter dependence on me and my renewed pledge, I hope, to take good care of him always, surely colored how I felt about Jeanette's parents. At times I was so angry. How could they?
By book's end, however, I pitied the parents. Not that their behavior had changed, but that Jeanette's perception may have. Her indomitable spirit and forgiving nature allowed her to still stand by them. That amazed me.
The book wasn't just an account of horrific childhood events. It was a glance at this embittered childhood through the eyes of a now self-assured adult. Prisms always do change the way we see things. Wouldn't a glass castle refract the light, too?
Much has been said in these comments about stronger feelings for the mother or father. Both saddened me. What's interesting, though, is that they were both dreamers. True, the mother's dream of becoming an artist seemed to fuel her indifference and neglect of her children, as it was such a solo, maybe even selfish, pursuit.
In contrast the father's unfulfilled dream of a beautiful hoome for his family may have hurt more for involving them in his craziness.
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