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MEMOIRS are our modern fairy tales, the harrowing fables of the Brothers Grimm reimagined from the perspective of the plucky child who has, against all odds, evaded the fate of being chopped up, cooked and served to the family for dinner. What the memoir writer knows is what readers of Grimm intuit: the loving parent and the evil stepparent may in reality be the same person viewed at successive moments and in different lights. And so the autobiographer is faced with the daunting challenge of describing the narrow escape from being baked into gingerbread while at the same time attempting to understand, forgive and even love the witch. How fitting, then, that the title of Jeannette Walls's chilling memoir, The Glass Castle, should evoke the architecture of fantasy and magic. The transparent palace that Walls's father often promised to build for his children functions as a metaphor for another fanciful construct, the carefree facade with which two people who were (to say the least) unsuited to raise children camouflaged their struggle to survive in a world for which they were likewise ill equipped.

'The Glass Castle': Outrageous Misfortune

 * By FRANCINE PROSE**



The biggest symbol of this book would be the glass castle. When Jeanette was younger her family, which consisted of her mom, alcoholic dad, and her 3 siblings. Ever since they were young her dad had always avoided paying bills so they would have to do the "skaddle" to run from the cops, and bill collectors. She grew up fast knowing she had to take car of her younger sister Maureen. Although she had older siblings she was the one who seemed to grow up the quickest.