The Glass Castle

Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. New York: Scribner, 2005.

The Glass Castle, a memoir written by journalist Jeannette Walls, chronicles her journey from an impoverished child living primarily in rural Appalachia to an aspiring journalist living in New York City. Walls and her three siblings were raised by a criminal, alcoholic father and an irresponsible, neglectful mother. Walls’ father is a dreamer and storyteller who promises to build his children a glass castle one day. Walls’ mother is depicted as carefree and tolerant of her husband’s destructive behaviors. In general, Walls depicts her childhood as somewhat happy, though characterized by profound challenges of circumstance.

The story is bookended by images of Walls’ mother, homeless on the streets of New York City. The memoir opens when Walls is a very young - she is on fire from cooking hot dogs on the stove at the age of three. Walls’ family is in a constant financial struggle, as her father cannot keep a job, and her mother is often lazy and unwilling to work and would rather focus on her art. When the family does have money, Walls’ father squanders it on booze and speculative purchases. The family moves from a trailer home in the dessert, to Las Vegas, to SanFrancisco, to the Mojave dessert, a mining town, and finally to a house in Phoenix which Walls’ mother inherited from her own mother. Upon arrival, the home is in good condition, well-equipped with furniture and space, but the home eventually falls into disrepair. For most of her childhood, Walls and her family live in rural Appalachia in extreme poverty with and near her father’s family. The family does not have a bathroom or running water, and their roof leaks water. Walls takes an interest in school and the school newspaper and gets a job at a jewelry store. Eventually the children make a plan that the eldest daughter, Lori, will move to New York and the others will join in time. In one scene, the children are starving and they come home to find their mother hoarding chocolate; in another scene, the father steals money the children have been saving for Lori’s move.

The memoir is engaging, and it’s easy for a reader to feel empathy for Walls and her siblings during instances of extreme parental neglect. Neither parent ever has steady work, and the children bear the weight of the family’s wellbeing on their shoulders. While the memoir’s prose could be understood by middle schoolers, most of the themes would be more appropriate for high school students. Younger students can relate to Walls’ story as it covers issues such as bullying, trying to fit in at school, and dealing with family disappointment and financial struggles. Walls writes in a distantly naive tone that reflects her own perceptions and attitudes at the time events are occurring, a tone that might be difficult for middle school students to fully grasp. For example, Walls and her family lived out of a car for a period of time and Walls writes of how she thought of it as an adventure. Walls’ tone, however, develops in maturity over the course of the story as she ages. Issues of concern for middle school students would be Walls’ alcoholic father, fowl language, and issues of sexual and domestic abuse. There are not any graphic scenes, but Walls recounts a time when the family lived with grandparents her and her siblings were “groped” by various family members. Overall, I found this to be a fabulous read, one that would be more appropriate at the high school level, but that could be read by 8th graders if approached the right way.