Now and then I watch a Netflix film. Just recently I saw The Glass Castle. Immediately, I wanted to read the book. It wasn't in the elibrary or my local library but 'putting in a reserve' produced it after a few days. I don't know why the book was a bit difficult to find here. It's a bestseller. First published in 2005, it spent more than six years on the New York Times best-seller list and has now sold nearly 6 million copies. Maybe because it's American it never really gelled with New Zealand readers. But it certainly gelled with me. It's astonishing. It's a memoir. It's a great memoir. It's Jeanette Walls's account of how she and her siblings survived an upbringing by outlandishly unconventional, and, at times, dangerous parents. Better the book firstI wish now that I'd read the book first, because as I read I saw the film characters. If this post persuades you to follow Jeanette Walls's bizarre life, I hope you'll read first. I’m sure that’s how to absorb the narrative the way the author wrote it. The book is available from online sellers such as Amazon and, for New Zealand buyers, from some local bookshops. Tell the truthThe shock opening – the successful journalist Jeanette sitting in a New York taxi and unexpectedly seeing her mother dumpster diving – was wasted on me because I'd seen the film. However, the last two lines of that opening, where Jeanette is remonstrating with her mother, set the book on its unique path. "And what am I supposed to tell people about my parents?" "Just tell the truth," Mom said. "That's simple enough." Jeanette does that for the rest of the book. The desertThe chronological story begins with a hungry Jeanette, in their trailer home in some little Nebraska desert town, boiling sausages, because her mother is too busy painting to attend to something as trivial as cooking food. The gas flairs up. Jeanette's dress catches fire. Mum runs in and smothers the flames. A woman from a neighbouring trailer rushes them to hospital. Jeanette is badly burned. She is three. Dad, on a visit, has an argument with the doctors about Jeanette's treatment, then picks up his daughter, runs from the hospital to where Mum has the car ready and they leave, with hospital staff chasing them. Mothering? Fathering ? Extraordinary. That was the Walls' life pattern. As they skedaddle from place to place, often because they haven't paid their bills, we gasp in astonishment at their family life. "By the time I was four, I was pretty good with Dad's pistol, a big black six-shot revolver, and could hit five out of six beer bottles at thirty paces." Grand plansDad had grand plans. He was making a machine to find gold. He drew plans to build a perfect house – The Glass Castle – for them all to live in, once they found enough gold. He continually drew plans for it. But he drank and he lost jobs. No money. No Christmas presents. Instead Dad gave the children stars. Jeanette got Venus. When they lived in Phoenix Dad took everybody to the Zoo because he wanted to show them how to treat animals. At the cheetah cage he took his kids over the distance chain right up to the bars. Then he sweet-talked the cheetah up to the bars and had Jeanette put her hand through so that the cheetah could lick it. It did. Other visitors and security went mad. The family had to leave. Welch
Full of unbelievability
Things to ponderThere is love and wisdom in this book. Reg loved his children. He hugged and cuddled them when they were small. They might not be in school but he insisted they read. He taught them math. He promised them the world: he just couldn't deliver. He drank. Rose Mary wanted the best for her four children. Homespun wisdom, often from an unusual slant came from her. She wouldn't have fly-papers in the house even when flies were a problem. Flies were part of the biodiversity food chain. Killing them interrupted that. Children vitally needed to learn such truths. I do hope you will read this book. It's a gem. □ John McInnes Friday 15 May 2021 Publication details: The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, Scribner, New York, 2005. ISBN 0-7432-4753-1 Postscript: On YouTube there are a number of interviews with Jeanette Walls. The one I like the most is in front of a group of writing students. To go to it click here ‒ but read the book first! ##########
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