LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I AM BACK IN THE GAME.
And by that I mean I like reading again. Apparently. It was so sad to me that I didn't enjoy most of the books I read this summer. What was that? Who was I? I'm going to chalk it up to pregnancy and forget it ever happened.
So I'm getting my mojo back and I LOVED this book. Jeanette Walls is the author of The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses, both of which I also loved but were memoirs (ok, HBH was sold as a true novel, but really it was her grandmother's story as told to her by relatives and then with dialogue added, so family memoir). This is Walls's first novel and it is stunning.
The premise is it's 1970 and two adolescent girls are temporarily abandoned by their loving but wild card mother, so they go across the country to live with a crotchedy old uncle in Virginia, encountering integration issues, the joy and strife of extended family, and one horrible encounter that changes their lives. The real story, though, is that Walls has experienced this kind of abandonment and mistreatment by adults and her voice shines through as the young narrator, twelve year old Bean. She's a character you just LOVE. She reminded me of the main characters in Sandra Kring's books How High The Moon and The Book of Bright Ideas. Those books have the same low level simmer created by innocent voices in turbulent times. You ache for the girls yet love their spunk. And I think this one is even a little darker due to Walls's real life experience with distrusting adults in authority. Read The Glass Castle and you'll see why.
I've been thinking about why I love the voice of Bean so much and I think it comes down to two things. First, she is truly elegant in her simplicity. She tells her story with just the right amount of fact, description, commentary, history, slang, and beauty. It's such a difficult balance to strike as a writer and I think Wall nailed it. Maybe writing in a younger voice gives her that opportunity, or having been a journalist helps her keep it simple, but I think it's masterful. Second, I love Bean just because I love Bean. She calls it like it is, holding her own with adults, both the well-intentioned bunglers and the true creepers. Bean tells one teacher, when reprimanded for not respecting her elders, that respect is earned by doing your job and none of the teachers are doing their job to protect kids from bullying. Zing. Love her.
So have you read the word "love" enough to get my message here? If not, here's another glimpse: I almost told my dad, who's on vacation with my mom, to order this on his Kindle for her to read RIGHT NOW. But I don't think they share books very well, since once on vacation they ripped one in half when one of them couldn't wait for the other to finish it. (I honestly don't remember which was which.) Not wanting that fate to befall my dad's Kindle, I didn't send that text. Let's hope they don't read this; they're still on vacation.
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