The Glass Castle

Not since Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series have I had so many people recommend a book to me. The Glass Castle is an extraordinary work of non-fiction, the story of a young girl who survived the profound neglect of her parents and all of the dangerous situations that led to. Her father did not keep a job. They moved from small town to small town running away from creditors and others. She and her two sisters and one brother slept in cardboard boxes and picked through garbage cans at school looking for apples other kids had thrown away. Their mother spent what little money the family had on art supplies instead of bread. Their father would steal what money the kids scrapped together and spend it on booze. When the mother found a diamond ring, she wouldn't pawn it for money for food even though her kids begged her to.

I couldn't put this book down. I can't remember the last time I felt that way about a book. I felt angry with her parents, angry even though they surely must be suffering from some sort of mental illness. The book opens with the author being driven to a fancy party in New York City when she drives by a homeless woman going through garbage and realizes it's her mother. Then the story flashes back to her childhood. She's 4 and making hot dogs on the stove by herself when her dress catches on fire and she's burned over much of her body. Later during the brief time she's living in a home, her parents insist on sleeping with the doors and windows unlocked even after the author wakes up to find a strange man has wandered in off the street and is touching her. It's just unfathomable what she endured. And what makes the book so good, is how little anger and blame is in her.

You would understand completely if she hated her parents and led a life of bitterness and loss, but she doesn't. She tells their story as they were, but you don't sense blame there. It's incredible - really quite incredible. I give an enthusiastic thumb's up to The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.