Overview

This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents. At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane, middle class existence' she had always craved. In her apartment, overlooked by 'a portrait of someone else's ancestor' she recounts poignant remembered images of star watching with her father, juxtaposed with recollections of irregular meals, accidents and police-car chases and reveals her complex feelings of shame, guilt, pity and pride toward her parents.

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9781844081820

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Reviews

'Walls doesn't pull her punches. Walls's parents - just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book - were a matched pair of eccentrics. And raising four children didn't conventionalise either of them. [Walls has] a fantastic storytelling knack.' Publishers Weekly 'Just read the first pages of THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls, and I defy you not to go on. It's funny, and sad, and quirky, and loving. I was incredibly touched by it.' -Dominick Dunne, author of The Way We Lived Then : Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper and Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments * 'Like JD Salinger or Hemingway before her, Jeannette Walls has the talent of knowing exactly how to let a story tell itself, crafted without self-pity or analysis or judgement' Independent on Sunday * 'A terrific story, grippingly told' Sunday Times * 'Funny and brilliantly written' Evening Herald * 'There isn't a shred of self-pity in this deeply compassionate book' Marie Claire

Tragic and comic at the same time... an outrageous story, one that will break your heart * Sunday Independent * A terrific story, grippingly told * Sunday Times * Like J.D. Salinger or Hemingway before her, Jeannette Walls has the talent of knowing exactly how to let a story tell itself * Sunday Independent * 'I read The Glass Castle straight through in an evening, wearing an expression of slack-jawed amazement. Jeannette Walls has managed to balance her account with great precision; as she and her siblings did, we must both love and hate her parents * Spectator * There isn't a shred of self-pity in this deeply compassionate book * Marie Claire * Wall's journalistic bare-bones style makes for a chilling, wrenching, incredible testimony of childhood neglect * Kirkus Reviews * Affection, shame and guilt run side by side in this unforgettable memoir of a childhood spent ''on the skedaddle'' * Woman and Home * Funny and brilliantly written through a child's eyes, recreating a unique family life * Evening Herald * Walls has joined the company of writers such as Mary Karr and Frank McCourt who have been able to transform their sad memories into fine art * People * Walls has a God-given knack for spinning a yarn, and The Glass Castle is nothing short of spectacular * Entertainment Weekly * Extraordinary * Time * Each memory is more incredible than the last... That Walls recounts them so well and in such detail is our good fortune * Plain Dealer * Some people are born storytellers. Some lives are worth telling. The best memoirs happen when these two conditions converge. In The Glass Castle, they have * New York Newsday * The Glass Castle is the kind of story that keeps you awake long after the rest of the house has fallen asleep * Vogue * Utterly engaging and teeming with incident. This is a life so vividly rendered that the reader feels present at every moment * Express * Walls has carved a story with precision and grace out of one of the most chaotic, heart-breaking childhoods... This deeply affecting memoir is a triumph in every possible way, and it does what all good books should: it affirms our faith in the human spirit * Dani Shapiro *

Author Information

Jeannette Walls lives in New York and on Long Island and is married to writer John Taylor. She is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.

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