The Glass Castle

Jeanette Walls doesn't pull her punches. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's 'overdressed for the evening and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, 'rooting through a Dumpster.' Walls's parents, just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book, were a matched pair of eccentrics who chose to be homeless, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them.

The Glass Castle is a memoir of Jeanette Walls. Growing up with parents whose ideals and nonconformity were both their four children's curse and salvation. In the beginning, Rex & Rose Mary Walls and their children, lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was charismatic, brilliant and, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted & wrote & couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.

Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town, and the family Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money & disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her siblings had to fend for themselves and support each other as they weathered their parents' betrayals and finally found the resources and will to leave home.

What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts, tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

Rex inspired the title of the book with the plans worked out on paper for his "glass castle" that he aspires to build some day. He often reassures his children with the promise of this fantastic housing. It is to be a solar-powered house, but first he needs to raise the money to build it, which entails numerous gold prospecting schemes that are doomed to failure. There always seems to be something setting him back to actually build this glass castle. Rex also finds work as an electrician or handyman. He is smart and mechanically talented, but his earnings inevitably are washed away in the floods of drinking that ultimately leave his family burnt out.

The moral of the story, and Jeanette's life? There is no glass castle, at least not one anybody else can build for us, even our own parents. We must create our own. And even then, glass castle's aren't even necessary.

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