Key themes
- The parent as both wound and gift — and the impossible task of accounting for both
- Poverty as a choice — and the idealism that chooses it
- The child who writes to survive what the adult cannot explain
About this book
A chaotic, nomadic upbringing remembered without bitterness; a remarkable family memoir.
Published in 2005, The Glass Castle spent over six years on the New York Times bestseller list. Walls had kept her childhood secret for years before deciding to write about it.
Discussion questions
- Rex Walls is simultaneously charismatic, brilliant, alcoholic and neglectful. How does Walls hold her love for him and her accurate account of the damage he caused?
- The family's deliberate poverty and nomadic life are presented partly as adventure and partly as deprivation. At what point does the memoir ask you to judge her parents — and does it judge them itself?
- The title refers to Rex's perpetually-promised glass house. What does this unkept promise represent — and what does Walls do with its symbolic weight?
- The memoir ends with Walls successful in New York while her parents live on the street by choice. How does she handle this moral and emotional complexity?
- Glass Castle is one of the most widely assigned school memoirs. What does it offer students that straightforward fiction cannot?
Get the book
Links open an Amazon search. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Read together or read next
Books that make a good pairing or natural follow-up.
Reading it with your group?
Get The Glass Castle
As an Amazon Associate and Bookshop.org affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases.