the Glass Castle is Half Empty

“It’s really not that hard to put food on the table if that’s what you decide to do.”

I started to read Jeannette Walls the Glass Castle a couple months ago but had to put it down due to some scenes involving animal neglect. I finally got around to picking it back up and I’m glad I did. The Glass Castle is a hard read (not just because they abandon animals they pick up but can’t care for) but it’s thoroughly engrossing.

Jeannette’s father, Rex, was an alcoholic dreamer who always had a plan; unfortunately he was usually too drunk to follow through on his ideas or they were just fantasies, like building the family a glass castle to live in, with no basis in reality. Jeannette’s mother, Rose Mary, was an artist who somehow managed to be a worse parent. Mrs. Walls was a certified teacher but despised the structure of having a job, even if it meant her children went hungry. After her mother died, she inherited land in Texas and received monthly checks from the oil rights her mother had sold- but the family still didn’t have new clothes and rarely had enough food on the table. As an adult, Jeannette discovered how much the land was worth and it was sickening to know that their family was sitting on something so valuable throughout the darkest years of their lives.  I hated how she put herself before her children and attempted to justify her actions, she clearly had a screw loose but it was still frustrating.

After bouncing around several small towns throughout Jeannette’s early childhood the Walls family settled in her father’s hometown of Welch, West Virgina. The family lived in a dilapidated three bedroom “house” with no indoor plumbing, a leaky roof and they often times couldn’t afford electricity. In the winter the usually went without heat since they couldn’t buy coal for the stove. Jeannette began to just eat what other kids threw away at lunch time since meals were so irregular at herhouse. She eventually found the school newspaper which gave her a place to belong.

Jeannette, her older sister Lori and their younger brother Brian began to realize that they were better at taking care of themselves than their parents ever would be. They formed a plan that eventually brought all four kids (they had another sister, Maureen) to New York City where they were able to start over away from their parents. Rose Mary and Rex eventually followed their children into New York but after burning too many bridges with their children then chose a life of homelessness, a life they seemed to prefer.

“One day Professor Fuchs asked if homelessness was the result of drug abuse and misguided entitlement programs, as the conservatives claimed, or did it occur, as the liberals argued, because of cuts in social-service programs and the failure to create economic opportunity for the poor? Professor Fuchs called on me.

I hesitated. “Sometimes, I think, it’s neither.”

“Can you explain yourself?”

“I think that maybe sometimes people get the lives they want.”

Everything in Jeannette’s life was a struggle and her triumph over her upbringing is truly remarkable. I was interested to hear that Brie Larson was recently cast to play Walls in a movie adaptation of her life since the bulk of the memoir takes place while Walls is a child. However, Woody Harrelson is set to play Mr Walls and that is pitch perfect casting if you ask me.