*****9.5 stars****
Dedication: "To John, for convincing me that everyone who is interesting has a past."
What a great book! This is how memoirs OUGHT to be...not white-washed, but with all the gritty truth, with all the despair and hope...proving how the circumstances and relationships of our childhood shape the person we become.
The other great message was that our childhoods don't define us. I wish more of my students knew that the decisions of their parents don't necessarily have to be THEIR decisions. In this great country, if someone is armed with Big Dreams and Some Smarts and An Ability to Work Hard, he or she is going to be just fine.
We tell our students to dream big and shoot for the stars and "a man's reach should exceed his grasp," and Jeannette Walls is living proof. I wish that the teachers of this country would add this book to their high school reading lists.
Some great excerpts:
On Christmas morning, Mom took us down to a gas station that sold Christmas trees. She selected a tall, dark, but slightly dried-out Douglas fir. "This poor tree isn't going to sell by the end of the day, and it needs someone to love it," she told the man and offered him three dollars. The man looked at the tree and looked at Mom and looked at us kids. My dress had buttons missing. Holes were appearing along the seams of Maureen's T-shirt. "Lady, this one's been marked down to a buck," he said.
***
We called the kitchen the loose-juice room, because on the rare occasions that we had paid the electricity bill and had power, we'd get a room. The first time I got zapped, it knocked my breath out and left me into the kitchen, we needed to wrap our hands in the driest socks or rags we could find. If we got a shock, we'd announce it to everyone else, sort of like giving a weather report. "Big jolt from touching the stove today," we'd say. "Wear extra rags."
***
"Poor mom," Lori finally said. "She's got it tough."
"No tougher than the rest of us," I said.
"Yes she does," Lori said. "She's the one who's married to Dad."
"That was her choice...she needs to be firmer, lay down the law for Dad instead of getting hysterical all the time. What Dad needs is a strong woman."
"A caryatid wouldn't be strong enough for Dad."
"What's that?"
"Pillars shaped like women," Lori said. "The ones holding up those Greek temples with their heads. I was looking at a picture of some the other day, thinking, Those women have the second toughest job in the world."
