The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

Recently the Fallston Branch book group, Critics Without Credentials met and discussed The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls. Find this book in our catalog.

This astounding memoir has such a lot in it for a book group to get their teeth into. Here is what one reviewer in Publisher's Weekly 01/17/2005 wrote:
"Freelance writer Walls doesn't pull her punches. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." Walls's parents...were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it." Since their parents remained willfully impoverished, "The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show... One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure." "
Discussion points
Do you think Watts' parents' poverty was a choice? Is there anything to admire in their lifestyle?
What do you think about the children's self-sufficiency?
What do you think of Walls' mother's gift for rationalizing and making the best of things?
The PW review said Walls has a "fantastic storytelling knack." Would you agree?
What is the tone of the book?
Does Walls resent her parents? Was she glad when they turned up in New York?
Did the children gain or lose from their upbringing?
Do you believe Walls' story?
What do you think of the metaphor of the glass castle in the book's title?
Link to Reading Guide:
There is an excellent discussion guide for The Glass Castle on BookBrowse.com