Memoirs
A memoir is a true story, written by the person whom the events occur to. Like an
autobiography a memoir focuses on that person’s life. While an autobiography focuses
on the writer’s entire life, the memoir focuses on a certain aspect (or theme) of the
author’s life.
Examples:
An Interview with Jeannette Walls
What motivates you every day?
I’m going to scare myself and quote my mother, but life is an adventure.
I think people are only capable of giving what they know.
What kind of upbringing did your parents have? We get a bit of your grandmother
in the book. Not pleasant.
That’s so incredibly well said. I think what’s stunning about my father is not that he was a
shiftless drunk – but rather that he had as much good in him as he did, given where he came
from. He was drinking heavily by the time that he was 15 and as best I can tell, got no real love
or support from home. The only person who really gave him any faith in himself while he was
growing up was an English teacher, the one I was named after.
My mother’s upbringing was actually rather upper middle class, but I think she suffered from
too much discipline and spent the rest of her life seeking out freedom and adventure.
What was your goal in writing the memoir? Was it cathartic? Did it help you
understand your parents? Did you ever feel a need to understand them?
It was HUGELY cathartic. And, yes, it helped me understand my parents, but that’s not why I
wrote it. I wrote it for a lot of reasons, partly because I knew I had to -- as Mom challenged me -―Tell the truth.‖ I’d tried a couple of times when I was younger; I wrote a couple of hundred
pages at a time on several occasions, then threw it all out. My husband was really instrumental
in my finally sitting down to write it. He practically duct taped me to the desk and said, ―You are
writing this.‖
The fascinating thing has been that even though I obviously knew all the things I wrote,
sometimes you don’t know what you know, but when you force yourself to examine it and really,
really be honest with yourself, you can put together the pieces of the puzzle that were all jumbled
in your head. I think that’s what happened in my case.
Would you be the person you are today if you grew up in a house with hot water
and a warm bed? Your parents heaped upon you lots of intelligence, creativity and
I got a sense that you always felt loved.
That’s the whole nature/nurture question, and I’m afraid I’m not smart enough to answer it
definitively. I used to think I’d have more confidence and a healthier sense of entitlement if I’d
grown up with regular meals and all that, but now I’m not so sure. A very smart sociologist I
spoke with said that every successful person he’s studied had to overcome some huge obstacle in
his or her life, and it’s learning to navigate those rough patches that teaches you how to deal
with it.
But yes, I actually think that in many ways I was incredibly lucky because I did feel loved and my
parents both put a huge emphasis on education and self esteem. In that way, I was much more
fortunate than many of the people I met while I was living on Park Avenue.
Should your family have been on welfare? Did you know how bad you had it? Did
you ever complain?
At one time I urged my mother to go on welfare, and she refused. At the time I thought she was
wrong, that we would have had it much better if we could have food stamps or something, but
now I’m not so sure. Mom said she didn’t want us to think of ourselves as charity cases, and
there’s something to be said for that. That being said, if I had four hungry kids with nothing to
eat and no way of getting any money, I’d go on welfare in a heartbeat.
I had a pretty good idea how bad we had it, but no, I didn’t complain. Not much, anyway. It
didn’t get me anywhere.
How is your relationship with your siblings today? How do they feel about The
Glass Castle? Do any of them live like your mother?
I’m very close to my brother. He loves the book and was very supportive every step of the way. I
showed him parts as I finished them because he has a steel trap memory and I wanted to make
sure I remembered things correctly. It’s interesting, because we remembered the same events,
but had different takes on them. For example, I think of the cheetah as being a gorgeous,
powerful beast with rippling muscles. Brian said, ―As I remember, that was as a sort mangy
creature.‖ I ran that by Mom and she said, ―It was both, but it wasn’t inside a cage. It was just
walking around the zoo.‖ People remember the same things differently, and if Brian or my
sisters had written the book, it would be entirely different.
Maureen and I lost touch when she moved to California, but after the book came out, we got
together again. I’m very happy about that.
Lori and I are pretty close, but she sort of didn’t want me to write the book, although she would
never have asked me not to do it. At first, she didn’t want to read it, but Mom urged her to. So
she did and she said she found it sort of painful to relive some of those episodes, but she really
liked it.
Jeannette writes The Scoop column for MSNBC.com.
http://conversationsfamouswriters.blogspot.com/2005/10/jeannette-walls-glass-castle.html
O.J. Simpson to confess — hypothetically
O.J. Simpson is confessing. Hypothetically, that is.
The former football great, who was acquitted in criminal court 11 years ago of killing his exwife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, reportedly has been paid a
whopping $3.5 million to write about the double murder that shocked and riveted the
nation in 1994, according to a detailed report in the new National Enquirer.
But Simpson is not actually confessing to the murder — rather, he’s writing a ―hypothetical‖
book — which the Enquirer reports is tentatively being called ―If I Did It.‖
The early part of the book tells how Simpson fell in love with Nicole and how the marriage
collapsed, reports the tab. He goes on, according to the article, to describe in gruesome
detail the killing of his ex-wife and Goldman; he stipulates that the murder scenes are
―hypothetical.‖ But, notes the tab, the descriptions are ―so detailed and so chillingly
realistic‖ that readers are left with little doubt as to what really happened.
Simpson can never be retried for the murders because of double jeopardy laws, according to
the Enquirer, which also claims that Simpson aims to keep any book money instead of
paying it out in a civil suit judgment against him by spending it all quickly.
Notes from all over
Diana Ross has reached out to Beyoncé Knowles, Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey —
offering them advice on how to survive in the business. ―I was getting ready to give advice
and support to any of them ... because Mariah Carey used to always ask ... how to have
longevity,‖ the diva said, reports ContactMusic. ―So I am available to discuss what it takes.‖
Jeannette Walls Delivers the Scoop Mondays through Thursdays on MSNBC.com
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/15066202/ns/today-today_entertainment/
Introduction – Page 23
Study Guide Questions
1. What do we know about Jeannette’s mother?
2. How did Jeannette catch on fire?
3. Why does she say she is happy at the hospital?
4. What injuries have the three Walls children had?
5. What does it mean to ―check out Rex-Wells style‖? (p. 23)
6. How would the Reader Response literary theory apply to what we have read so
far?
*Reflection:
What does it mean when she writes ―I’d tried to make a home for myself here, tried to
turn the apartment into the sort of place where the person I wanted to be would live.‖
What do you think stops her from enjoying this?
Page 24 – 36
Study Guide Questions
1. Who is Quixote and what happens to him?
2. Dad says that the FBI is ―on their tail‖. Who does Mom tell Jeannette is really
after them?
3. Who is Grandma Smith? What does Dad think of her? What does she think of
Dad?
4. What is dad’s ―most important invention‖? What is it supposed to be used for?
5. What is the Glass Castle?
Page 37-52
Study Guide Questions
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5.
Jeannette loves the story of how her parents met. What does her mom think of it?
Who is Mary Charlene? What happens to her?
What happens to Jeannette on their journey from the Bar None Bar?
What happens at the hotel in San Fransisco?
What does mom say makes the Joshua tree beautiful?
Page 53-64
Study Guide Questions
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What does Dad ―give‖ Jeannette for Christmas?
Why do Mom and Dad get into a fight? What does Mom do?
Who do Brian and Jeannette fight in Blythe? Why?
What makes them leave Blythe?
What happens in the U-Haul truck?
Page 65-77
Study Guide Questions
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5.
Where do they leave the piano? Why?
What is Dad’s job and where does he work in Battle Mountain?
What is Jeannette’s favorite rock to find?
What do Brian and Jeannette do to the shack?
What is Mom and Dad’s theory on parenting?
Page 78-93
Study Guide Questions
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What is the Green Lantern?
How does Dad teach Jeannette to swim?
Where did Jeannette find food when they didn’t have any at home?
What makes the neighbors come watch the fight between Mom and Dad?
Where does Mom get a job?
Page 94–108
Study Guide Questions
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5.
What happens with mom’s paychecks?
Who is Ginger and why does Brian dislike her?
What does Billy give Jeannette?
What happens when Jeannette and Billy are playing hide-and-seek?
Why do they have to leave Battle Mountain?
Page 109-125
Study Guide Questions
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What does Jeannette learn about Grandma Smith on the way to Phoenix?
What group do Brian, Lori, and Jeannette get placed in at Emerson?
How do getting glasses change Lori?
What does Dad bring home for the kids?
What happens when Dad goes to church?
Page 126-137
Study Guide Questions
1. How does Dad prove to Jeannette ―…that no animal, no matter how big or wild, is
dangerous, as long as you know what you’re doing‖?
2. How did Jeannette manage to eat lunch at school?
3. How did Mom decide they were going to get new dresses for Maureen to go to
preschool in?
4. What was Dad’s ―ingenious way‖ of getting extra cash?
5. What happens to their Christmas tree?
Page 138-153
Study Guide Questions
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What does Jeannette ask Dad for on her 10th birthday?
What happens to the car on their way to the Grand Canyon?
Where does mom tell the kids they are moving to?
What is the ―Piggy Bank Special‖?
Who is Erma and what is she like?
Page 154-166
Study Guide Questions
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Describe Welch. How do you think Jeannette feels about it?
What group do Brian and Jeannette get placed in at Welch Elementary?
How does Jeannette’s first day at Welch Elementary go?
What makes Dinitia decide Jeannette is alright?
How does Erma feel about Jeannette hanging out at Dinitia’s house?
Page 166-182
Study Guide Questions
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Why did Mom and Dad leave?
What does Jeannette see happening to Brian?
How does Dad react when he finds out what happens to Brian?
What is 93 Little Hobart Street like?
What happens to the hole Brian and Jeannette build for the Glass Castle?
Page 183-199
Study Guide Questions
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Who is Kenny Hall and what is his relationship with Jeannette?
What does Jeannette decide about ―whoring‖ after she visits the Pastors house?
Who is Ernie and what do the Walls kids do to him?
What does Dad have Jeannette do to the gash on his forearm?
What do Brian and Jeannette discover their mom hiding?
Page 200-216
Study Guide Questions
1. Why did they want to sleep with the dogs?
2. Who dies and what is Lori’s response?
3. When Jeannette gets a ride home from another bar-goer what does he tell her
that upsets her?
4. What does Uncle Stanley do to Jeannette?
5. Why does Jeannette tell her mother she has to leave her father?
Page 217-232
Study Guide Questions
1. What does Ernie Goad do when Brian and Jeannette try to go to the public
swimming pool?
2. Who does Jeannette go swimming with?
3. Who comes to visit the Walls house that Jeannette won’t let inside?
4. What do Lori and Jeannette create that Mom won’t follow?
5. What contraption does Lori make with a coat hanger and a rubber band?
Page 233-247
Study Guide Questions
1. Who is Mrs. Jeanette Bivens and what is her relationship to Dad?
2. What is Lori’s take on Mom’s situation? What is Jeannette’s?
3. What happens when Jeannette is in charge of the family’s money for the
summer?
4. Who is Robbie?
5. Where does Jeannette get a job?
Page 248-262
Study Guide Questions
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Why does Dad beat Jeannette?
What two decisions does she make as a result of the whipping?
Where does Lori decide she is going to ―escape‖ to?
What does Dad do to Lori’s scholarship project?
What happens to the escape fund?
Page 263-276
Study Guide Questions
1. What does Miss Bivens appoint Jeannette to?
2. Who is Chuck Yeager and what does he talk to Jeannette about?
3. Why does Miss Katona try to convince Jeannette not to apply to schools in New
York?
4. Why is Mom upset when Jeannette says she is moving to New York early?
5. What does Jeannette finally tell Dad about the Glass Castle?
Page 277-292
Study Guide Questions
1. What is Jeannette’s favorite room in her apartment with Lori?
2. What is The Phoenix and how she does she start working with them?
3. What news story did Jeannette hear on the radio before her parents even arrived
in New York?
4. What does Mom think of about being homeless?
5. Why doesn’t Jeannette stand up to Professor Fuchs?
Page 294-308
Study Guide Questions
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What happens to Dad and where does Jeannette visit him?
Where does Dad move after he gets out of the hospital?
Why does Dad storm out of Christmas?
What does Jeannette pay for her final year tuition with?
What does Jeannette tell people when they ask about her parents?
Page 309-End
Study Guide Questions
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What does Jeannette find out about the West Texas land her mother owns?
What happens with Maureen that troubles Jeannette?
Why does Dad call Jeannette over to see him?
What happens between Jeannette and Eric?
Who comes to Thanksgiving and what are their lives like now?