The Glass Castle A Memoir
Jeannette Walls
The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered. The Glass Castle is truly astonishing—a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.
Why we picked this
Does skipping town A.K.A. "doing the skedaddle" count as a version of wanderlust? I don't know, but every time I so much as think about this memoir, I'm transported throughout the US. Constantly moving feels like adventure for Walls and her siblings as young children, but as they grow up, the realities of their unique upbringing set in. An immersive, unforgettable memoir. I've never gotten over Walls' depiction of the Joshua tree in the Mojave Desert; I feel as though I've seen a Joshua tree in real life (I haven't).
Recommended by Anna SchechterReader in Residence
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