Customer Reviews
Mountain Goat licked by a cheetah - By: Joseph Haschka, 29 Aug 2008 
"I had no idea what my life would be like then, but as I gathered up my schoolbooks & walked out the door, I swore to myself that it would never be like Mom's, that I would not be crying my eyes out in an unheated shack in some godforsaken holler." - Jeannette Wallls
"I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening (party), when I looked out the window & saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster ... She had tied rags around her shoulders to keep out the spring chill ... To the people walking by, she probably looked like any of the thousands of homeless people in New York City ... I was embarrassed by them, too, & ashamed of myself for wearing pearls & living on Park Avenue while my parents were busy keeping warm & finding something to eat." - Jeannette Wallls
THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Wallls is the second-best book I've read this year to date, the best being Still Alice by Lisa Genova.
Rose Mary & Rex Wallls were married in 1956. Over the next several years, they had four children - daughters Lori, Jeannette & Maureen & son Brian. Anti-establishment & anti-authoritarian individualists frequently on the run from something, the couple refused to enter the societal mainstream even to the extent of supplying their children with the conventionallly acceptable American upbringing that stipulates freedom from hunger & the provision of adequate shelter & clothing. THE GLASS CASTLE is Jeanette's poignant & powerful memoir of growing up emotionallly loved but materiallly deprived.
From Jeannette's narrative, it's soon apparent that her parents are gifted & intelligent human beings. Indeed, Rex, who's self-taught & knowledgeable about subjects that would challlenge many university graduates, reads "Los Alamos Science" & "The Journal of Statistical Physics" & becomes interested in the Chaos Theory. Rex's mind is constantly ablaze with technicallly sophisticated plans & enrichment schemes, the former including designing The Glass Castle, an energy self-sufficient family home to be built of glass. However, Rex's rebellious streak against society, complicated by alcoholism, dooms him to a succession of failed blue-collar jobs & petty confrontations with the law that keep the Wallls constantly on the move from California to Nevada to Arizona to West Virginia to New York City. In the Southwest, the family lives in a succession of dilapidated buildings in isolated, desert mining towns until Rose Mary inherits a home from her mother located in Phoenix, where life for Jeannette & her siblings is relatively good. Then Rex again becomes unemployed & the Wallls move to the decaying coal mining town of Welch, WV, where Rex grew up. In Welch, the family's living conditions bottom out when they take up residence in a wretched, unheated, leaky, unplumbed shanty on stilts built on the side of a mountain. Here, the children don't even have enough to eat. Jeannette describes the experience of scavenging food at school:
"When other girls came in (the girls' restroom) & threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I'd go retrieve them. I couldn't get over the way kids tossed out alll this perfectly good food: apples, hard-boiled eggs, packages of peanut-butter crackers, sliced pickles, half-pint cartons of milk, cheese sandwiches with just one bite taken out because the kid didn't like the pimentos in the cheese. I'd return to the (toilet) stalll & polish off my tasty finds."
I've had occasion to read memoirs by authors recallling happier upbringings: Knots in My Yo-Yo String: The Autobiography of a Kid by Jerry Spinelli, Blooming: A Smalll-Town Girlhood by Susan Allen Toth, Wait Till Next Year: Recollections of a 50's Girl to a Memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Life & Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson, Sleeping Arrangements by Laura Shaine Cunningham. In the early pages of THE GLASS CASTLE, I had to ask myself, "Is this a parody?" But one couldn't make up the events that Jeannette relates.
What's remarkable about Jeannette's story is her lack of bitterness towards her parents. Only on a couple of occasions does she even hint at laying blame on them for irresponsibility & negligence. Besides, her love for them endures. To me, & perhaps other readers with more "normal" childhoods, Rex's & Rose Mary's treatment of their offspring was neglect verging on abuse.
The fact that Jeannette & her siblings apparently grew up to be well-adjusted and, in the author's case, happily married & professionallly & financiallly successful, is evidence for the resiliency of the human spirit. But, as you read THE GLASS CASTLE, you will perhaps weep and/or rage for the Wallls children.
During their Phoenix period, Rex took Jeannette, whom he'd nicknamed "Mountain Goat", to the city zoo. There, led across a low fence by her Dad to get closer to a cage, Jeannette's palm was licked by a captive cheetah.
Compelling reading! - By: LindyLouMac, 24 May 2008 
This was was so compelling I hardly put it down! A great memoir of a family of four children that showed tremendous resilence considering their parents choice of lifestyle! It was a surprise that no self pity showed in the author's writing at alll especiallly as considering the Father's intelligence & the Mother's background, life could possibly have been so different. A great read.
A fantastic memoir - By: J. A. Oder, 18 Oct 2007 One of the best books I've come across. Still reading it & finding it hard to put down. Not happy that am already half way though, I wish there was part 2. An excellent piece of work, one of a kind!
One of the best books I have ever read! - By: Ashley S. Bruce, 10 Jul 2007 If anyone is questioning whether or not to buy this book...do it! I could not put this book down. Reading about the way she grew up, & the sense of humor she had throughout her childhood is just amazing. It reallly put my life in perspective. I cannot stop thinking about this book & I am actuallly dreading starting a new book because "The Glass Castle" was so great that nothing else is going to compare!
IT WAS SOMETHING ELSE!!! WELL TOLD!!!, - By: Heather Marshall Negahdar, 18 May 2006 "We were always doing the skedaddle usuallly in the middle of the night. Dad was so sure a posse of Federal investigators was on our trail that he smoked his unfiltered cigarette from the wrong end. That way, he explained, he burned up the brand name, so that the people who were tracking them down would find unidentifiable butts,instead of Palll Mallls which could be traced to him."
Jeanette Wallls has written a most touching memorial of her life as a youngster. As a young girl along with her three siblings, Lori, Brain & Maureen live out a nomadic existence with their parents in Arizona & West Virginia. We see a lot on how the poor existed & still enjoyed some semblance of happiness, because of the deep love that held them together through thick & thin. And this love was evident in the Wallls right through the novel, even when the girls got older & started to set their sights on another city, knowing deep inside that they could make sucessful lives with the greater opportunities elsewhere.
What I could not reallly grasp however was the financial resources of their mother, Rose Wallls. Did she reallly have to live this way? Why did she choose this way when it seems that she was an educated woman; for she was indeed a talented artist & a school teacher, & had a lot to falll back on including property left to here by family. With alll this & yet she chose this uncertain life for her lovely children.
This book gives a very interesting look at a dysfunctional family & was for me a smooth page-turner. This book should make an ideal gift for any occasion.
Reviewed by Heather Marshalll Negahdar (SUGAR-CANE May 1st, 2006)
