The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls' memoir. As a child she lived a somewhat nomadic life with her brother and two sisters. Her father was an alcoholic dreamer and her mother was a schoolteacher-come-painter. Neither of them had the capability to hold down a job for a long period of time so Jeannette and her siblings spent their childhood on the 'skedaddle' - a phrase coined by her father Rex to explain leaving a town in the middle of the night when the money or food ran out. The Glass Castle is probably one of the most heartbreaking and amusing books I have ever read.
It is hard to equate the beautiful, well-dressed woman sitting across from me with the image of a skinny teenager in threadbare clothes. Jeannette Walls is a success but coming from a background such as hers, how could she be?
Writing this book was an incredibly brave thing to do?
You know it took me a while to do, I tried a couple of times when I was younger and actually at one point I wrote two hundred pages in a week and then I threw it all away. I was convinced that if it got out no one would want to know me and I would lose all my friends and my job. So I had to wait and write it when I was happy that if I did lose everything I almost didn't care. Though while I was writing it I did have to pretend no one was going to read it; if I hadn't I don't think I would have been quite as honest as I was.
Did you talk to your family before you wrote the book?
I didn't talk to [my sister] Maureen beforehand, she was living on the West Coast and we didn't talk much. She has read the book though and she's not 100% thrilled with it, she's fine about it but she is a little embarrassed. I did tell [my other sister] Lori and [brother] Brian and my mother. Lori also wasn't terribly keen on the idea, she finds the past quite painful. I did try to talk to Lori about one of the scenes in the book when we were younger, an incident that I thought was funny and when I said it to her she just burst into tears because it had really upset her at the time. It's interesting that some of things I recall in a certain way she remembers very differently. She did start reading it about two or three weeks ago at my mother's urging, and so far she loves it, she thinks I did a great job. My brother Brian has been fabulous since day one, very, very supportive and it's been great to have someone to fact-check with. Though he does tend to see things in black and white whereas I see things in shades of grey. He's more of a realist I suppose, more than I ever was. So I think he thinks I idealise things more than he would.
Your bond with Brian is quite evident in the book; Lori always seemed slightly separate and Maureen was her own generation.
Exactly, I think that's one of the reasons that I feel I was able to get through some of the tougher situations because he was there. It's funny though, as close as we were there are a lot of things we didn't discuss. After I showed him the completed manuscript he told me that he had been digging through garbage in high school too and I had no idea. I never told him I'd been doing it, there was no point as he couldn't change it; I was embarrassed, so I didn't want to burden him with it, and he felt the same way. So as close as we were there were things that we just kept to ourselves.
There is the feeling, as well, that if something isn't said aloud it doesn't become as real.
That is smart. There was no point in focussing on it as it was an embarrassing and humiliating thing, and if I didn't discuss it, it didn't become as real.
What has been so interesting to me, is when I was writing the book I thought that for a memoir to be relevant it has to somehow be personal and something that people can relate to. What worried me was who could possibly relate to this story of a strange little girl and her weird family. What has been so amazing to me is the number of people who have said, my family is pretty weird too, not as weird as yours, but pretty weird. People have said they can relate to the story. It's been very good for me to realise that I'm not a complete freak and a lot of people have weirdness in their families. I have gone through life thinking, "oh I'm so strange" and not giving people the credit to accept that about me. So it's been a real eye opener to realise that other people have weirdness in their families too.
It's probably reassuring in a way?
Hugely, it's actually been emancipating. I view the entire universe differently now.
It is different when you're an adult but when you're a child the most important thing is how other children see you. There is nothing crueller than children, is there?
Certainly, well, definitely adolescents. My very early childhood I idealised it and I was able to, but once I hit that age where you start looking around, realise you're different and that other girls have things like knee socks, little bags that their lunch comes in, that their moms put treats in for them. Other children can be extraordinarily cruel and in those circumstances where everyone was so poor, the other kids just wanted someone else to look down on, they wanted to feel superior to someone and we were that.
That fight in the book between you and Brian and a bunch of neighbourhood kids - 'The Battle of Little Boulder Street' - reading it, I was laughing but at the same time my heart was breaking for you.
I wanted to kill them, I did but that was how it was. There were so many near misses for me when I could have been sent away, to reform school or something horrible. I was very lucky, I was lucky that I didn't kill them and I didn't actually shoot Billy Deal and I didn't shoplift. There were so many kids who are basically good kids, but if you make a mistake and you come from that class in society and your parents aren't able to pull you out of trouble… All kids get into trouble but, for kids from my socio-economic group, if you get into trouble it is so hard to get back on track. When we went back [we found] my brother's best friend from school is apparently a terrible alcoholic and is practically living on the streets. He was such a good kid but he just didn't have any family support. For all of my parent's shortcomings they did encourage us to be more than we were. Despite what we didn't have we did actually have a lot.
I think it's really telling that the three of you are so successful in life.
It's funny that, despite our economic standing, Mom was a bit of a snob and always made us feel superior to everyone else. She would never describe us as poor. She would say we just have a very serious cash-flow problem. She still helps out the less fortunate and doesn't see herself as a needy person. It deadens the soul if you sit around feeling sorry for yourself, there is nothing to be gained from it and I think it is something that our mother did pass on to us: you have to just get out there and do what needs to be done.
You had this fear that people would treat you differently when they knew your background. Have they?
I was so wrong. If anybody looks down on me I haven't heard about it. They may do it secretly! Old friends who I lost touch with have been on to me to say "I love this book", people I've known for years have told me things about themselves. Complete strangers have written me these long letters telling me stories about themselves, full of admiration for me. Some of the people I was most worried about have been the most supportive and sympathetic. If I feel any sense of shame now it's that I underestimated people. You know, when somebody tells me something about themselves I don't look down on them. So smack my face for not giving people the same credit. People see this as a success story and an overcoming of circumstances and they love it and it's very unexpected and utterly wonderful.
Was there an air of disbelief from some of your close friends?
Well some people said how did you pull it off? How could you possibly pass it off coming from your background? But the fact that my mother was such a social snob made it easier for me to make the transition. One friend of mine said that she did notice that whenever issues of childhood came up I always changed the subject. She did think my past was very painful. My husband was the only person who called me on it, back when we were just friends. He's a very good journalist, an investigative reporter, and he said your story doesn't add up. He said you're being dishonest and it hurts my feelings and if you won't be honest with me I don't want to be your friend. So I told him. He was the only person who called me on it. His first reaction was that would make a great book!
I can see this would be a great film, have you had any approaches?
Well I'm not at liberty to discuss the specific offers because it's all in negotiation but there has been talk. I think in the hands of a really good filmmaker it could be a fun movie. I think that my mother and father would be such interesting characters. I don't think my role is particularly interesting but their roles would be great. I would love to see it turned into a film.
At this point in your life, if you could change how you grew up would you?
No, absolutely not. You don't get to the destination you are at if you don't travel the route. I think I would be someone totally different. But maybe for my kid sister or my older sister... I am a happy person, I wouldn't want to re-live it but I wouldn't want to change it. As bad as it all was, it led to what followed and the summer when I was thirteen, which was the worst time of my life. If I changed it I might never have got out of there.
Your first marriage failed, Brian is divorced and Lori has never been married. Do you think your childhood had an impact on your personal lives?
Absolutely, there is no question. None of the girls have had children. For all of my mother's wonderful virtues, she wasn't very maternal. I don't know if you learn to be maternal or if it's an instinct. If it is an instinct I don't think I was born with it. I had always thought I'd have children but I've never had an overwhelming desire to have them. I believe it's no coincidence that none of us have had children. Brian married a princess and he has so many women who would love to marry him now. I am optimistic to a flaw and I do tend to see this as rose-coloured, but yes I do think we were all damaged in a certain way.
It must have been such an emotional process to actually sit down and write this book.
It was very emotional. One of the hardest things was deciding how much to write about my siblings; that was tough. I ended up taking out a lot about my kid sister. There were a couple of scenes where I was so heartbroken writing the book. Especially writing scenes about my dad, he had so much potential. I try to look at it as he led the life he wanted to.
How did you choose what to put it in the book and what to leave out?
That was really hard and I ended up cutting a lot. Especially at the end, when we moved to New York City, I just ended up cutting a lot of it out. There were scenes that were redundant, they were just more of the same so I just cut them out. I had a great editor, which helped!
Do you blame your father at all?
If I had lost my belief in my father I would have lost my belief in the future.
So what next for you? How do you follow this?
Have you any ideas? I don't know. The only downside to this is I've used up all of my material! My father has all the great scenes and my mother had all the great lines. I'm still writing my column. I'm casting about for an idea. In retrospect, writing this book was actually fun, it didn't feel like that at the time but it was. So I think I will write more but I'm not sure what it will be about.
Jeannette Walls was in conversation with The Techie.
