Product Description

This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents. At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane, middle class existence' she had always craved. In her apartment, overlooked by 'a portrait of someone else's ancestor' she recounts poignant remembered images of star watching with her father, juxtaposed with recollections of irregular meals, accidents and police-car chases and reveals her complex feelings of shame, guilt, pity and pride toward her parents.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6908 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'Walls doesn't pull her punches. Walls's parents - just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book - were a matched pair of eccentrics. And raising four children didn't conventionalise either of them. [Walls has] a fantastic storytelling knack.' Publishers Weekly 'Just read the first pages of THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls, and I defy you not to go on. It's funny, and sad, and quirky, and loving. I was incredibly touched by it.' -Dominick Dunne, author of The Way We Lived Then : Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper and Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments * 'Like JD Salinger or Hemingway before her, Jeannette Walls has the talent of knowing exactly how to let a story tell itself, crafted without self-pity or analysis or judgement' Independent on Sunday * 'A terrific story, grippingly told' Sunday Times * 'Funny and brilliantly written' Evening Herald * 'There isn't a shred of self-pity in this deeply compassionate book' Marie Claire

Publishers Weekly
'Walls's parents -just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book - were a matched pair of eccentrics'

About the Author
Jeannette Walls lives in New York and on Long Island and is married to writer John Taylor. She is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.

Customer Reviews

The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls writes a very powerful and desperately honest account of her childhood. Raised by an alcoholic father and disinterested mother, she tells of the struggles herself and her siblings faced surviving poverty, neglect, and abuse in the US. Jeannette's account of her childhood is told with humour and acceptance, and I wasnt able to put the book down. A great read.

In My Observation
In my opinion, the thing that makes "The Glass Castle" so interesting is author Jeannette Walls' ability to take a passive role in observing the actions of an incredible ensemble of outlandish characters. It's a similar observational style that worked well in Augusten Burroughs' "Running With Scissors" and Rikki Lee Travolta's "My Fractured Life." It isn't the actions of Walls that make the drama, it is her action to observe and report the drama. The memorable cast of characters includes a mother who happens to be one of the most irrational woman of all time with an ironically uncanny ability to rationalize just about anything, and a father who favors an alcohol-based liquid diet and who balances the instability of the inability to hold a job with the stability of consistently losing at the card table. It's a cast of oddities that is every bit as fascinating as it sounds. Once you've completed "The Glass Castle", I also recommend "Running With Scissors", "My Fractured Life", "Smashed", "Simon Lazarus", "Nightmares Echo", "Mermaid Chair", and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time."

Inspirational And Honest Reflection
THE GLASS CASTLE is an inspirational and honest reflection of a childhood filled with pain. As of late there have been many "Memoirs" that are similar to this book. i.e. NIGHTMARES ECHO, A PAPER LIFE and SMASHED. Each book shows a different perspective on a childhood filled with pain that must be shoved down inside oneself only to have it emerge and threaten the lives of the adults that lived through that terrifying childhood. In each of the above books, inspiration and courage shined through to bring the author full circle and help us the reader to not just understand, but focus on our own lives and our own inner inspirations that keep us afloat. THE GLASS CASTLE has shown this very well with page turning enthusiasm.