When I was at Sit 'n' Knit at YARN in Eureka last Sunday, Sunni & Saremy & I got talking about dark memoirs. When they heard how much I enjoyed Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors, they both said I needed to read The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. Sunni had a copy for me to borrow, & I finished it in under 3 days.
It is a bare-all memoir from a woman who survived the caprices of a big dreamin', booze-addled but brilliant father & a possibly bipolar "adventure addict" artistic mother who preferred painting to providing for her children.
Written in a play-by-play documentation of events style, the reader is offered little in the way of insight into the emotional effects of growing up in a family where independence is valued over safety and where poverty and neglect reached appalling lows, but also a family of extraordinary intellect and resilience. Life with the Walls' was, apparently, never dull.
Hopefully Walls will proffer a sequel describing what marks such a childhood left on her. No wonder this woman is now a gossip columnist.
A page-turner that I thoroughly enjoyed, if for no other reason than it reminded me how lucky I am. Dark but entertaining. I gave it a 4/5 stars.
Up next: The Mapping of Love and Death, a mystery by Jacqueline Winspear.
Tags:
Glad you liked it! That book stuck with me for awhile. And it made me thankful for my own upbringing! See you around, toots.
ReplyDeleteI really loved this book and have recommended it numerous times
ReplyDelete