The Glass Castle: A Memoir / Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls’s gritty memoir The Glass Castle, an account of her wacky childhood, captured people’s imagination as evidenced by its sustained popularity. The book stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 100 weeks and was in constant demand in the library and has been a popular choice for book clubs. Now a movie is in the works, with Hollywood darling Jennifer Lawrence rumored to head the cast.

The glass castle of the title is the fantasy house father Rex Walls promises his family he will build for them one day when luck turns his way. Luck never does turn his way. Certainly no glass castle, the reality of what he provides for his family is quite different—a transient life, food shortages, living in tumbledown houses until the authorities start to sniff around, their father loses his job, or conditions otherwise become so unbearable that the family must move on. Throughout their childhood of degradation, the Walls children seem to regard much of what’s thrown at them as just another great adventure. Maybe this is survival instinct, because it does keep the family together almost to the end, when the kids finally break with their parents and move to New York City and try to shape their own futures.

Readalikes: Running with Scissors, Liars’ Club

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