Kavi Reads

Who said you need space travel, robots, murders or even some heart-breaking romance for an entertaining novel. Sometimes, just listening to the story of someone’s life is fascinating enough to capture you for hours at a time. A story that could so easily fit as the plot of a movie, that they actually made one out of it. And starred Captain Marvel to play the main character. The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls’s memoir of her dysfunctional childhood and the unconventional, poverty-stricken upbringing she and her siblings had at the hands of some interesting parents, to say the least. Named after the palace that Jeannette’s father often promised to build for his children, the title aptly represents the lives that two people led their children though, full of struggles camouflaged by fantasies and dreams of a better future, despite having no idea what that may entail.

Rex Walls, a gifted and charming but damaged alcoholic, was never able to hold a job. He was the head of a nomadic family, moving from place-to-place as his employment situations changed. His wife, Rose Mary Walls is an artist and teacher who has very particular ways about how to lead her life and raise her children; ways that may not always be considered correct but almost always went against convention. The children, as described by their mother, are Lori, the smart one, Brian, the brave one, Maureen, the pretty one and our author, Jeannette. Reared by a mother who believed children need to be left unrestricted and on their own to learn from their mistakes and suffering, the children were often left to fend for themselves against the various situations from bullies to hunger to sexual abuse. The children were often encouraged by the parents to see these nightmares as life’s adventures; something to laugh about in the future over a beer.

The book starts with three-year-old Jeannette cooking her own hot dogs on the stove. While making the hot dogs, Jeannette sets herself on fire and is rushed to the hospital. After spending a few weeks at the hospital, the parents decide it has been too long and Jeannette’s father “rescues” her and brings her back home, despite the cries from the nurses. This tells you everything you need to know about the characters; the parents’ mistrust of the “system”, the carefree household and Jeanette’s resilient personality.

Other similar adventures include life in the desert in the West Coast of America, which is described by Jeannette as beautiful as she is enchanted by the limitless bounds of nature. The time when Jeannette was hurled out of the station wagon and had to wait in the blazing Sun for hours before the family realised she was missing. Their overnight flee to Phoenix after Lori drove away a young boy fixated with Jeanette using her dad’s pistol. A zoo visit that had come to an end when Rex decided it was wise inside the cheetah’s cage to pet the giant cat, and made Jeannette do the same, ignoring the cries of the crowd that had gathered around them.

With Rex’s drinking habits and Rose Mary’s refusal to take any responsibility, the family soon hit a financial wall and were forced to move with Rex’s mother, Erma in Welch, West Virginia, a vile hamlet along a river distinguished by having, her father proclaimed, “the highest level of faecal bacteria of any river in North America”. The nightmare only got worse. Erma was a wicked witch, who did not permit laughter in her house, shunned the kids to the basement, even forced herself on Brian; all while Mom and Dad let it happen over the risk getting kicked out. When they finally saved up to have their own house, it did not have indoor plumbing or heating. The kids were forced to spend the lunch hours at school sifting through trash and shiver through the night in the cold. Even when the mom got a job, the dad drank the paycheck away. Things looked like they would never change until the children, one-by-one decided to move to New York and make a life for themselves.

The Glass Castle was the perfect example of Jeannette’s talent for story-telling. She has an amazing way of recalling all these memories in an unadorned style, yet somehow completely capturing the reader. It was made even better by the fact that Jeanette read the audiobook herself. At every point, we would root for the kids, waiting to see how they make it out of the situations that their parents put them in, all the way until New York. No matter what the parents did, the children always stuck together, supporting each other at all times. Even when a Child Protection Services agent came to their door, Jeannette made sure he left unsuspecting of their living situation over the fear of separating from her siblings. But what’s best is the ease with which she makes us see just how she and her siblings were truly convinced that their turbulent life was a glorious adventure. In one especially lovely scene, Rex takes his daughter to look at the starry desert sky and persuades her that the bright planet Venus is his Christmas gift to her. It all worked until she grew up and realised that the glass castle her father always promised… was nothing but a fantasy after all.