The Glass Castle

Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: 2005, Scribner
Lexile Measure: 1010L
Classification: Non-fiction

Summary:
The Glass Castle is a memoir by Jeannette Walls, an award-winning writer and journalist.  The book spent more than 200 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Jeannette describes her childhood growing up with an intelligent, charismatic, alcoholic father and a free-spirited, artistic mother, both of whom are either unwilling or unable to assume the responsibility of caring for their four children.  At first, the family lived like nomads, settling down in various towns only to flee when debtors or the law caught up with them.  Later, they settled in a dismal West Virginia mountain town where they became the poorest of the poor.   Throughout their childhoods, the children went without food, clothes, and medical care while their parents spent the little money they had on alcohol and art supplies.  Jeannette’s older sister and, later, Jeannette and her younger siblings, eventually escaped to New York City, where they finished high school, get jobs, and, in the case of the older three children, built successful careers and lives.  Jeannette’s parents followed them to New York but refused their offers of assistance preferring, instead, to live on the streets.

Although the book tells a tale of extreme poverty, alcoholism, possible mental illness, and extreme hardship and parental neglect, the story that comes through is one of understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, and resilience. 

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Language:
The Glass Castle contains a lot of profanity and repeated instances of children and adults cursing. Examples include, but are not limited to:

Taking God’s name in vain, h*ll, f*ck, chicken sh*t, sh*t, damn, *ss, *sshole, dumb-*ss, sonofab*tch, c*cksucker, sh*t-hole, g*dd*mmit, b*tch, wh*re, and c*nt.  Profanity is used in context but is repeated and pervasive.  The book also contains racial slurs for Italians and African Americans.

Drug and Alcohol Use:

• Jeannette’s father, Rex, is an alcoholic whose drinking prohibits him from holding a job or caring responsibly for his family.  He engaged in domestic violence, both physical and verbal, when drinking.  There are repeated instances of Rex and others, including teenagers, drinking and drinking to excess. 
  
• Rex drinks while driving.  One time, he caused an accident in which Jeannette fell out of a moving car (p. 30) and again when he got  in a fight with his pregnant wife and tried to run over her with his car containing his other children  (pp. 42-43).
  
• A waitress offered the kids a beer (p. 34).
  
• Rex smoked, and there are repeated instances of his smoking and discussions of him smelling like smoke (example, pp. 14, 19).  Other characters smoke as well.  
  

Violence and Crime:

• Chapter two begins with young Jeannette catching her dress on fire while cooking without supervision.  The chapter describes the following hospitalization and procedures.  Her father got her out the hospital and the family fled without paying (p. 14).
  
• The family repeatedly fails to pay their bills. When they run from their debtors or the authorities, they call it “the skeedadle” (repeated references throughout).
  
• Rex throws the family cat out the window of a moving vehicle and Jeannette’s mother condones his action (p. 18).  He also drowns a sack of kittens.
  
• There are numerous instances of domestic violence.  For example, while driving drunk, Rex gets in a fight with his pregnant wife and tries to hit her with his car while the kids watch (pp. 42-32).   During another fight, he hangs her out of a second story window (p. 71).  On another occasion, they get in a fight involving knives (pp. 222-123).  
  
• Rex whips Jeannette with a belt (pp. 220-221).
  
• Girls beat Jeannette after school and when they try it again, her brother tries to protect her.  In the fight that follows, Jeannette hits one of the girls on the head with a rock (pp. 44-48).  When the family moves to West Virginia, a new group of girls bully and beat Jeannette (pp. 138-140). The book discusses many people fighting in West Virginia (pp. 164-167).
  
• Rex runs from the police.  The adults and children steal food from dumpsters, trash cans, stores, and neighbors.
  
• Jeannette steals a watch from her workplace, but she feels guilty and returns it (p. 217). 
  
• When threatened by a boy who wants to date Jeannette, the kids shoot at him with their father’s gun. The police come  to question them.  Before the police can pursue the matter, the family moves (pp. 88 - 89).
  
• Jeannette’s mother takes the kids shoplifting, and the mother and father steal money from a bank by making too many withdrawals (pp. 111-112).
  
• One of Jeannette’s high school friends is arrested for stabbing her mother’s live-in boyfriend (p. 200).  Jeanette’s little sister stabs her mother (pp. 275-276).
  
• Jeannette’s father takes her to a bar with him and watches while an older man gropes her.  He gives them permission to go the older man’s apartment where he continues to grope her despite her protests.  When she tells her father later, he does nothing to address it (pp. 208-213).
  

Sexual Content:

• The kids are curious about a brothel (their mother tells them it is a “cathouse”) and make friends with prostitutes (pp. 62-63).  The book discusses a poor family whose mother is the town “whore” (pp. 160-163).
  
• Rex makes his son wait outside while he visits a prostitute (pp. 79-80).
  
• Jeannette visits a friend’s house and sees his father asleep with his penis exposed.  He had urinated on himself (pp. 82-83).
  
• A boy who likes Jeannette talks to her about sex and kisses her despite her protests.  He tries to pull down her pants, and while she is trying to get away, she accidentally touches his penis.   He later tells her that he had raped her.  She does not tell an adult because she does not want to cause problems (pp. 86-87). 
  
• They live in a neighborhood with vagrants and perverts and one of them crawls in a window at night and molests Jeannette (p. 103). 
  
• Jeannette’s dad tells her that if a boy ever gets her pregnant, she should claim it was an immaculate conception and pass a collection plate (p. 114).
  
• Their grandmother molests one of Jeannette’s brothers and it is implied that she had done the same to Jeannette’s father.  Jeannette tells her grandmother to stop and her sister and grandmother get in a physical altercation.  When Jeannette’s parents hear the story, they blame the children (pp. 146-147).
  
• Jeannette’s uncle fondles Jeannette and she sees him playing with himself.  Her mother does nothing to protect her (pp. 183-184).
  
• One of Jeannette’s high school friends gets pregnant and drops out of school (pp. 199-200).
  

Other:

• Rex and his wife fail to care for themselves and their children, repeatedly failing to provide life’s necessities, like basic hygiene, food, clothes, and medical care. They end up living on the streets of New York City. 
  
• The book discusses other religious belief systems, such as those of the Navajo Indians (p. 13).  
• Jeanette’s mother refuses to let the children attend Catholic school because she says the nuns are a bunch of killjoys who take the fun out of religion (p. 95).   She uses magic to curse someone (p. 102). 
• Jeannette’s father does not like religion, does not believe in God, and calls it superstition and voodoo.  He disrupts a church service by challenging the priest about crimes committed by the church and its representatives.  He mocks the priest’s clothes.  On Christmas, he disrupts midnight mass by yelling, “Virgin, my ass!... Mary was a sweet Jewish broad who got herself knocked up.”  He calls Jesus a bastard (pp. 113-113).  Rex talks to Jeannette about a demon (p. 36).
• Jeannette’s little sister becomes very religious and the book discusses her beliefs (pp. 206-207).
  
• Rex and Jeannette’s mother lie frequently, and Jeannette lies about her age to get a job.  There are numerous other examples of dishonesty.  
  
• The parents leave the kids outside while they gamble and visit casinos (pp. 29 and 32).  Rex teaches the kids to gamble.
  
• The book discusses racial prejudice against African Americans in their West Virginia town. (Examples on pp. 199-200).
  

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Other Helpful Reviews:

• New York Times
  
• The Literate Mother
  
• Good Reads