The Glass Castle Post #4: Links and Videos

     
     Jeanette Walls Interview

     This is an interview with Jeanette Walls, the author of "The Glass Castle". Not all of the questions are relevant to memoir writing, but there are two questions specifically that address it. In question 10, someone asks "... Do you think that when we tell our story, we embellish?" Jeanette, in response says she thinks that everyone interprets things differently and she hopes she hasn't embellished anything. Since we, as the reader, did not experience Jeanette's life with her, we only have her interpretation to understand her life story. Her interpretation is written beautifully and is a very enjoyable story. However, something about her interpretation doesn't sit well with me. Throughout the book, it never seems as if she has any major flaws. Sure, her family is messed up and some of the friends she makes are bad people, but it is never her who is at fault. She might very well be as wonderful a person as her story makes her seem, but not all of us who are writing memoirs are as great as she are.
     In this sense of memoir writing, I disagree with her. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but without even trying to, I think Jeanette unintentionally embellished herself. I hope that when I write my memoir, I can express raw emotion and personality without adorning myself too much. I admit that I am not the greatest person in the world and I hope both negative and positive traits can be seen for all of the characters in my memoir, including myself.
     In question 14, someone asks "...How do you write the book without feeling like you were turning on your mother? What do your other two sisters think of the book?..." While addressing this question, Jeanette says that the toughest part of writing her memoir was trying to be fair to everyone. She talks about this balance between condemning people and whitewashing the story. She also says that for these reasons, she cut out a lot about her kid sister. It is clear that Jeanette's younger sister did not turn out the way she hoped for her to. It is possibly due to her reliance on other people, or maybe perhaps because she grew up differently from the rest of the kids, never truly experiencing California. Regardless of the reason, Maureen was not the same as her three siblings and Jeanette made that somewhat clear.
     Again, I somewhat disagree with Jeanette. I understand that she doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, especially not her sister's, but this is still her own story. I think that when writing a memoir, your own view of other people should be shown because the story is meant to be through your eyes. The raw truth of her feelings and opinions should be expressed as far as Jeanette is comfortable with. I suppose some sense of balance is needed to make sure no one gets offended. But when writing my own memoir, I want to be able to feely express what I think about other characters.