Katie Prout - Quicklet on Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle

Before The Glass Castle finally came into being, Jeannette Walls had tried for close to 20 years to tell the tale of her nomadic, dangerous childhood and deeply dysfunctional parents. Each time she started, however, Walls would eventually pitch whatever she produced. It was the encouragement of her husband, writer John Taylor, that finally prompted Jeannette to follow the story of her upbringing to its end in her present. Walls has said that writing her story was a little like diving off the high diveone youre up there you just have to do it.

For much of her adult life, no one besides her family and her husband knew her full story. At first, Walls instinct was to put safe emotional distance between herself and her story by fictionalizing her account, but that didnt quite work. Honesty and intimacy, it turns out, were the key to a successful rendition of her past. Her first full draft was too distanced, said Walls: I was writing it as a journalist. It wasnt emotionally raw enough. Walls chose to write The Glass Castle from the perspective of her child self to bridge the gap between the act of writing about and the act of living through her life: as a child, Walls could encounter difficult experiences in their truest form and thus could convey those emotions and experience them.

By the books first printing in 2005, Walls father Rex was no longer alive to see the finished work of his middle daughter: he died in 1994 of a heart attack. However, Walls mother Rose Mary was alive and homeless in New York City as her daughter finished and completed her memoir. The Glass Castle spent three years on the New York Times bestseller list, and has been translated into 22 languages. With all this publicity, many interviews with Walls touch on her mothers reaction to the books revelations: how did she respond to descriptions of her behavior that could be described as neglectful at best and abusive at worst?

if anything, Rose Mary Walls has enjoyed the publicity. Moms such a character, said Walls. And in a way, thats one of the things, now that I dont have to put it up with it, that I sort of like about her. She doesnt run to the comforts that other people do. Shes really a survivor, shes a pioneer woman. Much, it seems, like her daughter herself.

The second of four children, Jeannette Walls was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1960. She grew grew up in cars, hotels, motels, and dusty homes in and around the American Southwest and later in Welch, West Virginia, always alongside her dysfunctional but creative family. At the age of 17, Walls moved to New York City to work and eventually attend Barnard College. For 20 years, she worked as a journalist in New York City for publications like New York magazine, Esquire , and USA Today , and contributed regularly to the gossip column Scoop at MSNBC.com . With the encouragement of her husband and writer John Taylor, Walls wrote and published her memoir The Glass Castle , an account of the hazards and occasional joys of her unconventional upbringing. For her work, Walls has received numerous awards, including the Christopher Award for helping to "affirm the highest values of the human spirit, as well as the American Library Associations Alex Award, and the Books for Better Living Award. Walls lives in rural Virginia with her husband, the writer John Taylor.

The Walls family may consist of two parents, their four children and an assortment of pets, but they are not the typical American family unit. Sure, they have a car and they take family vacations, but too often for the Walls, the car is also their home, and their vacations begin after they skedaddle away from an eviction notice.

In her memoir The Glass Castle , Jeannette Walls recounts both the perils and odd beauty of her unconventional childhood. The novel opens when Jeannette, the second eldest in the family, is on her way to a Manhattan party one blustery March evening and sees her mother rooting through a Dumpster. The fear, anger and shame that spiral up from this encounter are the emotions that Jeannette has been struggling with all her life. Following her mothers advice to just tell the truth, Jeannette begins where good writers know to go: right at the very beginning.

Her first memory is of fire running all over her three year old body. As Rose Mary and Rex Walls encourage all their children to do, Jeannette was taking care of herself by making her own hot dogs when a close encounter with the gas flame leaves her in the hospital for 6 weeks. The childhood of each Walls kids is marked with such accidents. Rex and Rose Mary love their children dearly, but Rexs alcoholism and own inner demons have stunted his ability to be a mature father, while Rose Marys artistic ambitions and mood swings often make it impossible for her to see past any needs other than her own.

Their parents wanderlust and scrapes with the law take the Walls family from Las Vegas and Phoenix to the coal mines of Welch, West Virginia. Rex teaches Jeannette to throw knives and shoot his pistol like a veteran pro before she enters the double digits. Rose Mary shows her children how to tell what water is good to drink in the desert. Some of the best family evenings take place after trips to whatever library the Walls happen to reside closest to, or out under the desert sky, with Rex offering each of his children their very own star.

As could be expected, the familys idiosyncratic lifestyle gets them into trouble with the law and public school officials. Jeannette and her siblings fend off bullies and sexual predators under their parents lackadaisical care, and dont always come out winners. They dig through garbage for their meals when their father has spent the money on alcohol, and make plans to fix up the house when their mother is too withdrawn to get out of bed. Throughout it all, the Walls siblings depend most on each other, out of necessity as much as love: their fates are so intertwined that if one sinks, they will all drown.

One by one, the Walls kids break away to New York City, where they experience stability and opportunity for the first time. Their parents inevitably follow. With anger, honesty, tenderness and grace, Jeannette and her siblings find a way to honor their parents life choices while choosing other paths for themselves.

• Rex Walls: The cussing, charming patriarch of the Walls, Rex has an intelligent if idiosyncratic mind and a serious problem with authority and alcohol. Rex loves his children, but doesnt always make the best choices in regards to their welfare.
• Rose Mary Walls: The artistic, unconventional mother of the Walls children, Rose Mary describes herself as an excitement addict, whose concern with self-preservation often outweighs or runs counter to the interests of her children.
• Lori Walls: The eldest of the Walls brood, Lori takes on responsibilities for her siblings upbringing that should be her parents. Shes a bit of a loner with an artistic streak, and tends to sympathize with their mother when the kids parents fight.
• Jeannette Walls: Red-haired and playful, Jeannette blossoms in her off-beat upbringing during the first part of her childhood. Her fathers favorite, Jeannette always sees the very best in Rex, but as the family falls apart, she is forced to confront the reality of her parents failures and strike out on her own if she and her siblings are to have a chance at a successful life.
• Brian Walls: At one year apart, Brian and Jeannette are the closest of the Walls children, and for every tough scrape they get into, hes got her back and shes got his. As he grows older, Brian grows angrier and more disappointed with his parents, especially after he suffers sexual abuse at the hands of his grandmother, Rexs mother Erma.