Summary Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls is an author of many books, one of which being her memoir The Glass Castle. After years keeping her story a secret, in 2005 Jeannette’s husband inspired her to write her sad story for the world to see. Through the 288 pages, Jeanette illustrates her story of a life as nomads constantly on the move, with a passive mother and a drunken father. The stories she shares show the side of an abusive childhood that we rarely have the opportunity to understand. The glass castle is shattered in the reader's face, and its pieces rebuild their broken perspective.
The glass castle starts off in the present with Jeanette taking a taxi home and seeing her mother picking through a New York city dumpster. Jeanette returns to her middle class
Rex, Jeanette's father, was an alcoholic whom Jeanette loved and admired with all her heart when she was a child. Later in the book we see the same habits of her father, more of a good side from her mother, and less pride in her father from Jeanette. On page 123, Walls writes a horrific account of domestic abuse “‘Rosemary, where the goddamn hell are you, you stinking bitch?” he yelled. “Where is that whore hiding?” He found mom in the bathroom crouched in the tub...They fought their way into the dining room, and he knocked her to the floor…. She grabbed a butcher knife… He picked up a knife too… He wrestled her to the floor.” All four of their children were there the entire time trying to get their father to stop. At the end of the fight, the mom was hugging him and they were laughing. Even though throughout the book there are plenty of examples of poor parenting, stories such as this give us as readers a backstory as to why Rose mary is the way she is. Jeanette lived this conflict through her whole life and wants us to feel the empathy she felt towards her rag doll