339 (2013 #23). The Silver Star

I thoroughly enjoyed the other two books by Jeannette Walls that I've read - The Glass Castle, her memoir about growing up in a dysfunctional family, and especially Half Broke Horses, her "real-life" novel about her grandmother's life in West Texas and Arizona in the early 1900s.  So, when I had the opportunity to get an advance reader edition of her latest book (to be released June11), I jumped at the chance.

This book is definitely fiction, but I see a lot of The Glass Castle in it.  The main character is called Bean, but her real name is Jean.  Bean has an older sister named Liz (Jeannette Walls has an older sister named Lori).  Their mother, a single parent in this book, leaves them alone frequently for long periods of time while she pursues her own selfish,  unrealistic dreams - much as Jeannette's real mother did.  Much of the story takes place in a small Virginia town.  Jeannette's father grew up in a small West Virginia town, and much of The Glass Castle takes place there.  Walls is definitely writing what she knows.

In the story, when their mother leaves them alone for too long, twelve-year-old Bean and fifteen-year-old Liz, who are half-sisters, head from California to the small Virginia mill town where their mother grew up and their widower uncle, a hoarder (like Jeannette's mother), still lives in the old family mansion.  It's 1970, and the town suffers through some pains of integration of the schools, yet I would hesitate to call this book historical fiction, as that is just a small part of the story.

As much as I wanted to like this book, I don't think its as good as Half Broke Horses or even The Glass Castle (both of which I rated 5 out of 5 stars).  Bean was a spiky, well-developed character, but the others were flat or stereotypical.  Some of the events in the story stretched plausibility.  That works in a memoir and might work in books meant to be humorous (like Jack Gantos' Dead End in Norvelt), but it did not work so well in a story with a serious plot event.  I won't spoil it, because this is a fast, easy read, but I felt a bit let down.  It was as if the book was The Glass Castle Light.  Maybe my expectations were too high since Walls' other books that I've read were SO good.  Since the narrator is a precocious twelve-year-old, perhaps the book will find a more receptive audience in young adults.

© Amanda Pape - 2013

[This advance reader edition was given to me by the publisher at the 2013 Texas Library Association conference.  It will be passed on to someone else to enjoy.]

218 (2011 #23). Half Broke Horses

written and read by Jeannette Walls

This is a prequel of sorts to Walls' memoir, The Glass Castle.  Half Broke Horses is the story of Walls' grandmother, Lily Casey Smith (1901-1967), who in Glass Castle is perhaps the only source of stability in young Jeannette's life.

In an author's note at the end of the book, Walls reveals that she'd originally intended to write about her [eccentric] mother's childhood, but her mother convinced her to write about Lily instead.  Walls resisted, as her grandmother died when she was eight and "most of what I knew about her came secondhand" (page 271).  She could confirm much of what her mother and others told her (including in books about two ancestors),   Walls says she wrote the book "in the first person because I wanted to capture Lily's distinctive voice, which I clearly recall" (page 272).  However, in a Publishers Weekly interview, Walls said,

she didn't feel honest calling the book nonfiction. "Once you start assuming or plugging up holes, jumping to conclusions, it's no longer pure. Once it's no longer completely nonfiction, then it becomes fiction.” So Half Broke Horses' subtitle is A True-Life Novel. Walls' hope for the book is that it inspires readers to examine their own family histories.

The rollicking tale begins with Lily saving her two younger siblings from a flash flood on the Salt Draw near Toyah, Texas, where Lily was born in a dugout in 1901.  Lily lives an exciting life in some of the most remote parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona - but also in the big city of Chicago in the Roaring 20s.  She helps her father train horses, teaches in remote schools, works as a maid and marries a bigamist, sells moonshine during Prohibition, learns to fly a plane, and manages a huge ranch with her Mormon-raised second husband, Jim Smith 

Lily's life is fascinating, and the descriptions of the places she lives in and goes to are detailed.  Along the way, daughter Rosemary is born and grows up (the book ends with Rosemary's marriage to Rex Walls and the birth of Jeannette in 1960), and the reader gets some clues as to why Rosemary turns out the way she does in The Glass Castle.

Walls reads her own book for the audio version.  While she's not a polished narrator, I found her quite believable voicing her own grandmother.  While a Dorothea Lange Depression-era photograph is used on the cover of both the hardbound and audio versions (after various iterations), the hardbound has actual photographs of Lily and her family inside.  While I love Lange's work, I don't think this particular photo fits the story - I would have rather seen some sort of collage of all the real photos of Lily and family. 

© Amanda Pape - 2011

[The audiobook and a print copy were borrowed from and returned to my university library and my local public county library respectively.]

2. The Glass Castle

by Jeannette Walls

I read this memoir for an online book club I now belong to. The author is the second of four children of an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother who can't seem to hold down steady jobs and are constantly moving the family (at least 11 homes by the time the author is four). Numerous incidences of child neglect bordering on abuse are recounted in the book, which is set in the 60's and 70's. Yet, the author (perhaps because she is writing from the viewpoint of herself as a child at the relevant age) shows no bitterness towards her flaky nonconformist parents. This makes the memoir refreshing when compared to others where the author's anger is apparent (Running with Scissors comes to mind).

It's also possible to view Walls' unconventional upbringing as the source of her strength, and her parents as simply creative, unconventional people with a sense of adventure who didn't believe in spoiling their children (in any way). That's probably the best thing about this book – there will be many different reactions, because the author has written objectively and left it up to the reader to pass judgment on her parents.

I highly recommend this book. It's generating some great discussion in the online book club. It's especially interesting to see the children's growing awareness, as they get older, that their family's adventures are not normal.