Books & Reading
Books Sandwiched In
Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle: A Memoir
If you want to read other memoirs written about dysfunctional families, try:
- All Over But the Shoutin’, by Rick Bragg
"All Over but the Shoutin' is Bragg's recollection of growing up poor and white in the red clay foothills of east Alabama. It is the tale of an alcoholic father deserting his family and the mother who toiled in the fields or at any odd job to keep food in her three boys' stomachs.” (Bookpage.com)
- The Liars’ Club, by Mary Karr
“The Liars' Club focuses on Karr's early years growing up in an East Texas refinery town, the child of two larger than life parents: a mother married seven times, twice to Karr's father, who teeters on the brink of psychosis, and a glitteringly charming but violent father. Karr and her sister Lecia know no other life than chaos, fights, and lies spurred by alcoholism and mental illness, and their scrappy defiance in the face of these odds is heroic and poignant.” (Powells.com)
- Lifeguarding, by Catherine McCall
“The power of family, the pull of water, and the personal struggle to claim your true self are brilliantly explored themes. In Lifeguarding, McCall bravely portrays her Southern familial battleground, which to the community of East End Louisville, appears to be a normal upper middle class family who spend leisurely days at the country club. But the truth is, there are serious fractures and secrets in the McCall family that readers are witness to, along with sweet and painful insight from the author into her own and her family's ability to, in the end, be ok after enormous struggles and painful circumstances.” (Amazon.com[Brooke])
- This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wolff
“The story introduces us to the young Toby (aka Jack) Wolff, who in the 1950s moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington to escape her violent boyfriend. Separated from his father and brother, Toby struggles for identity and self-respect. When his mother remarries, Wolff finds himself in a battle of wills with a hostile stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be exceedingly stubborn.” (ReadingGroupGuides.com)
If you would like to read memoirs about quirky and unconventional families, try:
- Somehow Form A Family, by Tony Earley
“Tony Earley's View of the world is from the edge, at the cusp. This is what this collection of personal essays is about - about how he stands with one foot in the rural mountains of his birth and upbringing and the other in the Brady Bunch’s split-level."--BOOK JACKET.
- Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank B. Gilbreth
“No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there’s Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. Finally there’s Mother, his partner in everything, except discipline.”-- Book Jacket
- A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel
“In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards. Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds her.” (readinggroupguides.com)
If you like to read novels about unconventional and sometimes abusive or quirky family situations read:
- Gaits of Heaven, by Susan Conant
“Called in to train a dog belonging to a dysfunctional New Age couple, Holly Winter stumbles into the middle of the family's secrets when the wife falls victim to an accidental overdose and the victim's daughter persuades Holly that it was murder.” (Novelist Database)
- Playing With the Grown-ups, by Sophie Dahl.
“Playing with the Grown-ups is an enchanting novel about growing up in a loving, utterly chaotic household; it is also hilarious, heartbreaking, and scandalous. . . With her magnificent talent for storytelling and creating unconventional characters, Sophie Dahl ably carries on the literary legacy of her grandfather, the beloved children’s book author, Roald Dahl.” (booksoup.com)
- Between, Georgia, by Joshilyn Jackson
“Growing up at the center of a Crabtree-Frett feud begun by her birth, Nonny is caught between her biological family and her adopted one, between contempt for her philandering husband and the comfort of marriage, between an apartment in Athens, Ga., and her childhood home, Between.” (Novelist)
- Flower Children, by Maxine Swann
“Follows the experiences of four siblings as they grow up in rural Pennsylvania under the guidance of devoutly hippie parents who believe in life without limits, a situation that involves innocence-compromising freedoms.” (Novelist)
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