{"id":4902,"date":"2009-11-13T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=4902"},"modified":"2009-11-02T19:26:43","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T01:26:43","slug":"the-glass-castle-a-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/the-glass-castle-a-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"The Glass Castle: A Memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"glasscastle\"<\/a> “I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through the Dumpster.”\u00a0 That’s the opening line of\u00a0Jeannette Walls’ memoir.\u00a0 True to form without, The Glass Castle<\/strong><\/em><\/a> doesn’t disappoint.<\/p>\n

We first follow Jeannette and her family as they shuffle from one desert community to another, one step ahead of the law and from homelessness.\u00a0 Her\u00a0father, though brilliant, is also an\u00a0alcoholic and usually\u00a0unemployed; her mother is\u00a0flighty and\u00a0artistic\u00a0with a hands-off\u00a0philosophy of child-rearing.\u00a0 One of the author’s first memories is that of being burned — she was three years old and cooking hot dogs on the stove unsupervised.<\/p>\n

\"halfbrokehorses\"<\/a>The family eventually\u00a0settles in a shack in the dismal coal-mining town of\u00a0\u00a0Welch, West Virginia, their father’s hometown and a place he had earlier escaped.\u00a0 Here the children manage to survive by\u00a0fending off bullies and eating out of garbage cans at school.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This all may sound rather depressing, but in fact,\u00a0 this is a very uplifting book.\u00a0 What comes through, loud and clear, is the author’s sincere love and affection for her parents —\u00a0in spite of the obvious\u00a0neglect and abuse. This and the fact\u00a0that she was\u00a0able to triumph over her upbringing and carve out a very successful life for herself makes this one of the best books I have read this year.<\/p>\n

Now Walls has a new book out, Half-Broke Horses<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, which deals primarily with her grandmother.\u00a0 If it’s\u00a0anything like her first\u00a0book, it will be\u00a0fascinating!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through the Dumpster.”\u00a0 That’s the opening line of\u00a0Jeannette Walls’ memoir.\u00a0 True to form without, The Glass Castle doesn’t disappoint. We first follow Jeannette and her family[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[905,903,748,267,904,552],"class_list":["post-4902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-staff-picks","tag-alcoholism","tag-difficult-childhoods","tag-hardship","tag-homeless","tag-insanity","tag-poverty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-1h4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4902"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4949,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902\/revisions\/4949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}