The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

One of my favorite books that we read in my book club is a memoir by Jeannette Walls named The Glass Castle. The book begins with the author in a New York City taxicab all gussied up to go to a fancy schmancy event. When the cab took a shortcut through an alley, she saw a woman rooting through a dumpster. When she realized that this woman was her own mother, Walls slid down her seat and asked the driver to take her home. The Glass Castle then goes on to explain how her life ended up in this scene of contrasts.

Saturday night I saw Jeannette Walls speak at the Marin Center. By a strange coincidence, I happened to be the one who let her in the building when she arrived one hour before show time. I only had a chance to say that I was pleased as punch to meet her and that I loved her book before the official Marin Center person came to greet her. What I really wanted to do was steal off to have a cup of tea with her. She was already impeccably dressed with full stage make-up. Did she really need a full hour to do a sound check? I knew we would get along because we had so much in common.

Early in The Glass Castle, Walls relates the story about how she burned herself at age three when she was cooking a hot dog for herself. At around age three, I too burned myself. We were living in Lawang on the island of Java in  Indonesia where my parents ran a small satellite factory for my grandmother. The factory produced bottled tropical fruit syrups similar to the Torani fruit syrups used to make Italian sodas. The floor had just been mopped and, while I was running, I slipped and fell into one of the large, low vats of molten sugar that were lined up along the gangway. The right side of my torso, my right arm, and part of my face were immersed. I did not need skin grafts like Walls because I was fortunate that my mother knew of a very good German doctor in Lawang. He gave me a shot, no doubt for the pain, and dispensed a white cream in a tube to rub over my burns. I wish I knew what this salve was because everywhere my mother applied the medicine, there is no trace of the burn. The only place where I have a scar is behind my ear where my hair obscured the wound from my mother. Whenever I go to a new hairdresser I get to explain this story because there is an ugly scar and no hair growing behind my right ear. I often think how different my life would have been if my mother had not known of this doctor.

I dislike author talks that only rehash stories already contained in their book, though I do appreciate hearing a passage or two read in the author's voice. Walls only related stories from her book to give context to her anecdotes. She quickly told the story of her burning accident in order to explain how accepting her husband is of her skin graft scars by referring to them as interesting and textured, not smooth and boring. I now know what to say the next time I see my hair dresser.

Another way my life was like Walls' is that our fathers were both dreamers. Where Walls' father "skedaddled" from city to city and state to state, my father skedaddled us from country to country, continent to continent chasing the dream for a better life. . I was a teenager when my father made noises of pulling up stakes to move to Canada or Australia, but this time we were older and more independent so we told him to go without us.  We were no fools; we knew it didn't get better than California. My father chose to stay.

Like Walls, it was education that catapulted us into a new life. It is doubtful that my sisters and I would have gotten the same quality education as we got at UC Berkeley for $212.50 per quarter had we lived elsewhere.

Walls told of a young reluctant reader who carried The Glass Castle around with him everywhere. When his teacher asked him what it was about that book that he loved, he said, "That there is a fine white trash story." Then she talked about a young privileged cheerleader that she met in the Carribean who said that Walls' book convinced her to never make fun of a classmate again. Walls then exclaimed in her charming Southern drawl, "The Lord can strike me down right now!" because she was able to connect with people from both ends of the spectrum.

I sincerely hope that the Lord will keep you around for lots longer because we like the likes of you and look forward to reading your next book in October.

For a clip of Jeannette and her mother, click below:

For the Simon & Schuster reading guide, click here.