The Glass Castle, Conclusion

FM:  I think any of us who are no longer living with their parents can relate to the sense of Escape that we felt when we left them.  My relationship with my own parents was as comfortable as any I’ve ever seen, and yet the sense of Escape was very strong.  Jeannette Walls’ sense of Escape from her home life was practically an escape from Hell, and as we read about it we feel along with her what she was gaining when she left.  For a 17-year-old girl to just move to New York City with no prospects of any kind except that her 19-year-old sister was already there would seem like a risky proposition to most of us.  

CJ:  From a teacher’s standpoint I really like the story and how the children turned their lives around. So often we hear the statistics of breaking the cycle of poverty that I think sometimes we all buy into the lie. This story just goes to show it can be done with determination & encouragement from those of us who live outside that life. 

FM: And yet, we have to shake our heads when we find that her parents have followed her and her siblings to New York.  Escaping her past turned out to be not so easy, after all.  Sure enough, they try to mooch off their children at first, and then when they are turned out, they adapt like chameleons to the standard NYC homeless stereotypes that we all imagine when we hear the phrase “street bums.”  When Jeannette offers her opinions of the Homeless in her Political Science class, the professor rather irately asks her what she could possibly know about them.  “You have a point,” she says, not wanting to admit anything.  What a powerful moment. 

CJ:  The story also drives home the fact that you can't change someone who doesn't want to change. Dad's new clothes & Mom's valuable land are perfect examples of such a situation. They are content with their place in life and have no desire to change, even for their children's sake. 

FM: A real insight into the mindset of homeless people emerges when she buys her father some warm clothes for Christmas.  Offended, he walks away without a word.  Not long after that, he gives her almost a thousand dollars in cash that he won playing poker with other down-and-outs so she can complete her college degree.  And then, the stunner: her mother, almost by accident, discloses that during all those years of poverty they’ve suffered, she was refusing to part with a parcel of land – for purely sentimental reasons  – worth around a million dollars.  Watching her father’s health fail him in stages is painful for her, but the inevitability of his miserable demise seems to prepare her for it.  Watching him start to do well for himself, apart from his wife, with a job he was successful at and real sobriety for a change – and then to be dragged  back into the old habits by the wife again, losing everything, must have been more painful still.  It’s heartwarming, though, to see the now grown children start to do well for themselves (with the tragic exception of the youngest daughter), and to wrap up the book with the awkward, yet loving Thanksgiving Dinner, and with the final message that, despite all the set backs, there is always hope for a better future.

CJ:  Nice read & reminder of the reality of psychology in our prosperous country. Thanks for recommending it SC.

August's book: "In Cold Blood," by Truman Capote!