Two Memoirs

Two Memoirs

Adult nonfiction
My younger daughter, Katie, had read The Glass Castle and
thought I'd like it. Luck was on my side. Orono Public Library has a
whole wall of the community room devoted to a permanent book sale, $1
for hard covers, 50 cents for paperbacks, payable to a librarian on
duty. (I've even seen volumes worth $50 or so.) Anyway I found The
Glass Castle cozier up to another likely looking volume: The Liars'
Club.
Back at home I realized they were both memoirs. That genre of
literature is, in my opinion, essential in today's world. When I was
younger the tv family--mom cleaning the house in dress and pearls, dad
breezing in after a day at the office, kids whose problems could be
solved in half an hour--became the measure of all things. Not fitting
in became a source of silence and shame for kids whose lives were not
similarly scripted. And now with social media images showing people
only at their (often enhanced) picture perfect best, the pressure is
amped even more. In the introduction to the 10th anniversary edition
of The Liars' Club Mary Karr comments on how readers confided that
they, too, grew up in less than picture perfect families. Her book
made them realize they weren't the only ones.
"Even the most perfect-looking clan sailed through a rough
patch. 'I'm from one of those Donna Reed households you always wanted
to adopt you,' the elegant woman in Chicago said. But her doctor
daddy got saddled with a wicked malpractice suit. A few more martinis
than usual got poured from the silver shaker every night. Rumor was
he took up with his nurse."
Both memoirs begin with a childhood memory involving fire.
Karr's is set like a tableau. She sits on a matress with her family
doctor trying to get her to show him the marks. Lecia, her older
sister, is being held by a stocky sheriff. The dog outside strains at
his leash, barking menacingly. Firemen tackle a gasoline fire in the
back yard. Her mother is being taken "away"...
...not exactly a Leave It To Beaver moment...
...and then the narrative moves on, leaving the reader with lots
of questions. The back story is not revealed til much later.
Karr was born into a rather unusual family. Her mother was
nervous, a term that in the part of Texas where she grew up meant
"anything from chronic nail-biting to full-blown psychosis." Her
father was an oil refinery worker, a union man who loathed scabs.
Her parents' marriage was far from made in Heaven. Her mother
would make her nervous with her divorce talk and her anger. As for
her father,
"...he never spoke of divorce as an option. If I asked him
worried questions about a particularly nasty fight, he'd just say I
shouldn't talk bad about my mother as if even suggesting they might
split up insulted her somehow. In his world, only full-blown lunatics
got divorced. Regular citizens in a bad marriage just hunkered down
and stood it."
However, a couple of years after that, following an accidental
move to Colorado, the girls came home from a night riding trip to hear
their parents' divorce announcement. Their father was moving back to
Texas; their mother was staying in Colorado. With whom did they wish
to live?
"She [Lecia] chose, finally. If we left Mother by herself,
she'd get in capital-T trouble. But Daddy would just go back to work
at the Gulf, so we'd always know where he was. The logic seemed solid
enough. Let's go back in there and break it to them, she said."
Only the marriage isn't over yet. The girls flew back to Texas
after a particularly dramatic incident involving their mom, a gun, and
their mom's boyfriend. In Texas another drama, avidly witnessed by
the community, set Karr to musing:
"...All my life I'd wanted to belong in their [neighbors']
families, to draw my lunch from the simple light and order of their
defrosted refrigerators. The stories that got whispered behind our
supermarket cart, or the silence that fell over the credit union when
Daddy shoved open the glass door--these things always set my face
burning. That afternoon, for the first time, I believed that Death
itself lived in the neighboring houses. Death cheered for the Dallas
Cowboys, and wrapped canned biscuit dough around Vienna sausages for
the half-time snack."
A whole lot of fascinating experiences lead up to this
epiphany. You must read the book to get it...
...or know where the title came from.
"It had been months since I laid eyes on Mom, and when she
looked up, I was overcome with panic, that she'd see me and call out
my name and that someone on the way to the same party would spot us
together and Mom would introduce herself and my secret would be out.
I slid down in my seat and asked the driver to turn around and
take me home to Park Avenue."
Why would an adult woman be so afraid of being recognized by her
mother she'd flee to her home, deciding not to attend a social event?
You'll have to read Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle. If anything,
it's the stranger of the two books.
Walls' fire experience happened when she was three. She was
standing on a chair in front of the stove cooking hot dogs. Her pink
dress caught on fire. At the hospital she was pronounced lucky to be
alive. Her burns were severe enough to require skin grafts. After
she'd been there awhile her father broke her out.
Walls spent much of her childhood moving from place to place,
usually in the middle of the night. Her father, sure the FBI was
after him, fled when he thought they were getting too close. Her
mother said the mysterious pursuers were really bill collectors. Her
father couldn't keep a job. She and her siblings weren't always in
school. There wasn't always food.
The family was on a quest to get rich. As soon as they struck
gold the father would be able to build a glass castle run by solar
cells. In the meantime Walls had to deal with parental alcoholism and
neglect in housing situations I wouldn't leave my cat in. How she
managed to survive and thrive despite her upbringing is the
fascinating narrative of The Glass Castle.
On a personal note, Sunday my friend Lauren preached at my church.
She did a great job running Wilson Center. Now she's moving. We'll
really miss her. Tuesday I was back at Community Garden after missing
three weeks due to work. People were glad to have me back and I was
happy to be harvesting and delivering. I'm still learning lots at
work. Can you believe we have a stir fry place where people can
choose what ingredients they want and see them stir fry cooked right
on the spot? I'd never seen anything like that in my whole entire
life. I was the one who took orders. Friday toward the end of supper
the fire alarms went off. The fire fighters came to find the problem.
I am SO GLAD Wells didn't burn down. So is supervisor Anna.
A great big shout out goes out to Lauren with best wishes. I know
wherever she goes she will do good work and find people who will love
her.
jules hathaway


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