The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Blog written by Meredith

The Glass Castle from Jeannette Walls has proven to be another popular book club choice.
The 'almost unbelievable' true story of a white American family living in poverty bears witness to the fact that homelessness can sometimes be a choice.  Of course, the children didn't choose to be forever hungry, homeless and vulnerable to the world, but the parents did. In fact, the mother felt no shame in her life, advising her daughter to just tell the truth about her childhood.

So that is exactly what Jeannette has done.

Her memoir opens with her earliest memory at the age of 3, a shocking event where she has cooked herself some hotdogs in the trailer, setting herself alight in the process. She ends up in hospital for 6 weeks with severe burns, only leaving when her father breaks her out saying "you don¹t have to worry anymore baby, you're safe now".

This clearly sets the stage for a life on the run with totally dysfunctional and irresponsible parents, proven time again with each incredible story in the book.

A number of moments in the book stood out, for example, when Jeannette
decided she didn't like her teeth and tried to make her own braces.  The
time when the father stole the money from the children, their hard earned
savings drained away at the pub.  The time when Jeannette's mother and
sister went away and at the age of 12 she had to try and manage the
budget, her younger siblings and hardest of all, keep her Dad away from
the money.  The times when Jeannette was at risk of sexual attack, in
particular from her uncle.

The stories are endless, and all add up to a very different childhood than
the rest of us. What is particularly interesting is the way in which the author narrates
the story.  It is a very detached voice,  neither appearing to judge or
ask for pity. She could almost be accused of sugar sweetening the
stories, it was almost unbelievable, and therefore, even questionable as a
memoir.

In fact, when viewing a You Tube video of her and her mum, she almost
seems like she is a presenter of some TV show, it is a little divorced
from reality.

There is no question, that The Glass Castle was a gripping and powerful
read.

It received a high rating, averaging 8 all round.

Our next book is The Forgiven by Lawrence Osbourne and it will be at Sarah's on Thursday July 21st.

My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Blog written by Sally

This a compelling story of a childhood in Naples in the 1950s. Elena narrates the story of her relationship with her best friend Lina – starting from her first impressions of Lina as a rebellious first grader, up to their 16th year, when Lina gets married to a local boy and the two childhood friends appear to be set to live very different lives. It is the first novel of a trilogy and from the prologue we learn that Elena is writing the story in her sixties, when it appears her friendship with Lina has taken another dramatic turn.

I really enjoyed reading this one!  Elena tells a very vivid tale of what seemed to me to be a very foreign place and period of time. I felt she was writing just as much to understand herself as to present the story of Lina, and her perception of herself seems to be shaped from the contrasts she sees in Lina. The relationship of these two girls drawn together despite their very different personalities is certainly complex and often unsettling.  There is a strong sense of foreboding about the future for Lina despite her apparent effortless brilliant intellectual and creative ability and drive as a child. While Elena, who seems to be pushed by a need to prove herself and fear of failure, seems to have a future that will be much more secure. Her hard work at school earns her the title of “my brilliant friend” from Elena.


Overall our group enjoyed the book scoring it between 7 and 8. I think we all agreed the writing style was masterful. The negatives included getting started was difficult with many different similar sounding Italian names to get used to. The index of characters at the front of the book is definitely useful. Most of us found the level of violence in the community which pervades the whole book from the first encounter between Elena and Lina to be disturbing. It doesn’t really offer relaxing reading. A few of us found the tale of childhood as told by the adult Elena perhaps a bit affected. Some were not satisfied by the abrupt ending. Despite these shortcomings, it was a very intriguing and stimulating tale for discussion and we all agreed we wanted to read the next book in the series.

Our next book is The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls and we will be meeting at Meredith's on June 16.