The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

I first read The Glass Castle soon after it was published in 2006, but as I wrote in my review for another of Walls' books, Half Broke Horses, my book group chose it for March. I loved Half Broke Horses so much that I decided to read The Glass Castle once again!

The story opens with Walls, aged 3, starting a kitchen fire and getting third-degree burns because she was cooking hot dogs and her dress caught fire. At age 3. Hospitalized for several weeks, her parents take her out of the hospital before she has fully healed and has been discharged. And she's right back to cooking hot dogs at the stove, because that's what her parents tell her to do.

Rose Mary Walls (Jeannette's mother) had been raised to be independent, but she took that to an entirely different level. Probably bipolar, Rose Mary wanted to spend all her time making art, not raising children. So the children had to raise themselves. They didn't get groceries for weeks at a time...because Jeannette's dad Rex drank away any money they had, and Rose Mary couldn't be bothered to find a way to feed the kids.

Nomads and rebels, Jeannette's parents took their kids all around the country, and they would flee towns in the middle of the night when her parents were unable to pay their debts. They slept in cardboard boxes and peed and pooped in a hole in the ground until it overflowed.

This book has so many shocking stories...it's unfathomable that her parents would think how they raised their children was okay...but alcoholism and mental illness will do that. All three of the Walls children got out as soon as they could.

Now Walls' mother lives on her property in Virginia (you can get a glimpse of her mom in this youtube video). She is a hoarder, to no one's surprise. Even though her parents provided very little stability in her life, it's clear that Jeannette had a deep, complicated love for both of them.

The Weight of Silence

The Weight of Silence, by Heather Gudenkauf

In this quiet, easy read, seven-year-old Calli Clark is best friends with Petra Gregory. Although Calli does not speak, Petra speaks on her behalf. Calli's father is a mean drunk, and her mother tries to pretend that everything is normal.

When Calli and Petra disappear early one morning, Calli's mother Antonia is forced to face what she has been trying to ignore.

Gudenkauf portrays a family damaged by alcoholism and abuse, with two sensitive children who have been deeply scarred by the disease.

Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering

Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering, by Meredith Baxter
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

First of all, very clever name. Meredith Baxter, star of TV movies and the classic family sitcom, "Family Ties," writes about her lack of mothering, three troubled marriages, parenting, drug use and alcoholism, bout with breast cancer, and eventually, her coming out as a lesbian.

"Family Ties" last three years were when I lived in Japan. I remember my parents or friends taping a bunch of the American TV shows I liked and sending me videotapes--they were priceless. "Family Ties" was one of the shows I relished on those videotapes.

I've always enjoyed Baxter's acting, and I was surprised along with many others when she quietly announced that she was in relationship with a woman...although I suppose the fact that her three marriages were unsuccesful could have been a clue.

Baxter never went to college so when she was with her second husband, David Baxter, who constantly verbally and emotionally abused her (and sometimes physically assaulted her, too), she always felt "less than." It took a lot of courage for her to finally declare that she'd had enough. I think that verbal and emotional abuse is even harder for women to walk away from sometimes than physical abuse. In her case, she had five children to consider as well.

Those expecting a full book of stories about "Family Ties" will be disappointed, as she covers that period in just a chapter or so. She fondly mentions Michael Gross (who played the dad), who became one of her closest friends and one of the first people she told about the abuse. I first heard about this book when I happened on an Oprah clip with Baxter, and Michael Gross appeared as a surprise guest. It was clear that they have great love and affection for one another.

She doesn't go into great detail about most of her costars (in fact she doesn't even mention Justine Bateman, causing me to wonder), so readers who are expecting a celebrity gossip rag will be disappointed.

It's not high literature, but it was an interesting read, with ultimately, a happy ending.

Dry: Memoir of an alcoholic

Dry by Augusten Burroughs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Great, searing account of Burrough's struggles with alcoholism.



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The Hour I First Believed: A novel about Columbine

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Do not read this if you cannot stomach sad stories. This was a classic tragedy in many ways, even with supplemental myths and metaphors. Wally Lamb is a skillful writer, and he wove together the story of complicated protagonist Caelum, his third wife Maureen (who survives the Columbine tragedy and is forever marked by it), the women's prison on the family's property, refugees from New Orleans, lost teenage and adult souls, and Caelum's ancestors.

In Lamb's afterword, he quotes James Baldwin: "People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes back to them, poisoned."

It's a book about the devastating nature of alcoholism, cruelty, violence, and war. And how in the midst of it all, humans somehow find each other and love each other.



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