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Marci Ien: It is so wonderful to be here with you. What a great crowd. Look who came out
for you, Jeannette. Look at you, girl! So, I'll tell you. There are a lot of things that
I get asked to do, but when Tina asked me to do this, I leaped, I jumped. I said, absolutely.
Her unforgettable memoir, The Glass Castle, took the literary world by storm. Readers
were so enraptured, it remains on the bestseller's list, many of them, eight years after it first
debuted. Then she followed up with Half Broke Horses, the story of one of Jeannette's grandmothers.
And it was a story intricately woven. It was a part memoir and part fiction, and now Jeannette
brings us The Silver Star, and a girl named Jean 'Bean' Holiday. On that note, Miss Jeannette
Walls.
[applause]
MI: Jeannette, what a pleasure to have you here. I have to say, I love the book. It kept
me up and that says something. I wanna start with that transition from memoir, fact to
fiction. And was it a difficult transition to make?
Jeanette Walls: You know, I've been going around for the last several years saying I'm
incapable of making things up. So I got some serious backpedaling to do. I still think
of myself as a reporter to this day, and The Glass Castle, of course, was non-fiction.
And I thought that that was the only thing I had to say. There's some serial memoirists
out there, and I'm not among them. I tell my story and I go back to writing snarky paragraphs
about celebrities. But this funny thing happened. These celebrities started pulling me aside
on the red carpet and saying, "Thank you for writing about alcoholism in such an intelligent
way. My father's an alcoholic, and I've bought several copies of your book and given it to
my friends, so they could understand my relationship with my father." Dang, can't write anything
mean about that person anymore. [laughter] And it's sort of being flattered?
Oh, I'm sorry.
[background noise]
MI: How's that? Is that better?
JW: No.
MI: Could we maybe pump the volume? Okay, how's that? Okay better?
JW: So, these celebrities started asking me, started, sort of... They humanized themselves,
and I didn't wanna do what I was doing anymore. But I didn't have an alternate career. But
I'd been touring on behalf of The Glass Castle, and so, people were asking me about my mother
and her childhood, and so I thought I'd give that a shot. And so I interviewed Mom about
her mother and she was the one who encouraged that that it should be about her mother, and
not about her. And I didn't know how much of it was true because it's all from my mom,
so who knows?
[laughter]
JW: And I found that I had to fill in the gaps and so I... It's not about being non-fiction,
but I thought, I've taken too many liberties, I've gotta call it fiction. And then I thought
that was that. And again it was readers who kept asking me, "Is your... Are your parents
mentally ill?" And I don't know the answer to that. They're certainly the far side of
loopy. [laughter] I don't know, but I did a lot of reading on mental illness and the
relationship between mental illness and creativity, and I became fascinated by it. I sort of wanted
to tell a story about it. But I couldn't figure out a way to do it in non-fiction. So, I wrote
fiction, but that being said, I really didn't make that much up.
JW: I still don't think of myself as a creative person. I'm more of an observer and the sort
of fiction that I'm drawn to is a lot closer to truth than non-truth. It's... I mean, you
look at a lot of the greats, John Steinbeck and John Updike and people write what you
know. So, I cobbled together stuff that I knew and tried to make it believable and credible
and feel real. The challenge becomes not what really happened, but what would happen and
what is believable? What would this person do in this circumstance? But since you're
taking a piece from here and a piece from there, it's a little bit like a Frankenstein
monster. Then you gotta make sure that the arms aren't too long for the body. And so
that's the challenge, is to make the pieces all fit.
MI: Let's set the scene. It's 1970. It's early in the Nixon presidency, so the Vietnam war
is raging. You've got two sisters, Liz and Jean, whose name is Bean. That's her nickname.
And their mother, Charlotte, who has aspirations of being a singer and takes off now and again
for weeks at a time, abandons the girls, and they take care of themselves. Here's what
was fascinating, you don't have any children?
JW: I don't.
MI: You don't?
JW: No.
MI: I have an eight year-old girl, almost nine, and it was incredible how you wrote
in Jean's voice, this 12-year-old girl, because I was reading and I thought, "My kid would
say that. How does she do that?" You don't have kids of your own, yet her voice was a
*** on as she tells the story of what happens to her, and what happens to her mother and
their journey from California to Virginia.
JW: Well, thank you. It's mostly case of arrested development. [laughter] Sometimes I think
a little bit like a 12-yeah... Old. But that was, again, that was a challenge. If you write
something, you can't sound like a 53-year old woman, you know. I had to say, "What would
a 12-year old think? What would you do?" And when you read it back to yourself, and go
over it again and again, and you have to make sure that whatever happened, could have happened
in 1970, that it's not too contemporary. So, when you're writing non-fiction, you don't
have to worry about these things. It happened. When you're writing fiction, the great challenge
is, could it happen? Would it have happened? Have I transported the reader, so that they're
not thinking, "Ah, the author did this." So that you feel that you're in the story. I
read the book back to myself a couple of times after I wrote it, to make sure that it felt
conversational. I didn't want... I didn't want them to think about the writing. I don't
want people... I want them to... I want anybody who's reading it to feel that it's spontaneous.
MI: The New York Times said that The Glass Castle haunts this book.
JW: Yeah.
MI: But, in a good way. And I understand what the writer means because there are similarities
there. You have got two girls who were left to fend for themselves. Strong girls, independent
girls, but they've got insecurities as well. There's a lot of you, there's a lot of your
siblings, and there's a lot of your mom...
JW: Oh, yeah.
MI: In Charlotte, the mom in this book.
JW: Yeah. In fact, one of my favourite lines in the book that I gave to Charlotte, it was
straight from my mom. My mother lives with me in Virginia now. Not with me, I'm not a
saint. We have a place out back for her, but... [laughter] But you write what you know. You
write what you know. I'm not gonna be writing thrillers, I'm not gonna be writing about
the upper crust of society. You write what you know and these are some things that have
haunted me. One of the things that fascinates me is the way that when parents are absent,
the siblings look after each other. And I think that, consequently, sometimes in dysfunctional
families, the oldest sibling gets, sort of, the toughest. Because they're in there protecting
the younger ones and sort of breaking the waves. And I think that, sometimes, they come
out the most damaged, so that the younger ones can survive.
MI: They've sacrificed the most.
JW: They've sacrificed a lot, a lot. And I think some of that happened in my family.
MI: Tell me about doing the research for this book because these girls travel from small
town California to this little town in Virginia, and it's a mill town. And the mill has seen
better days.
JW: Yeah.
MI: And it's about old family money. And old families, and kind of a dynasty that had it's
day, but is no longer what it was. Tell me about the research that went into all of that.
JW: Well, I live in Virginia now, in rural Virginia. And there are a lot of these characters
there. There used to be a mill community, and I have a dear friend whose father used
to own a mill, so I've heard some of these things. And they fascinate me. And these people
pining away for the glory that used to be, you know? And especially in certain parts
of the south, in the US, you get, "Oh, back before the war. Back before the Civil War".
And I actually, I have friends... They're very dear people, but they'll sit around rationalizing
why their family owned slaves. It was like, "Oh, we treated them very well!". "Oh, you
did, huh? That's real nice of you!"
[laughter]
JW: And it's just... It's a little mind boggling. So, I took a lot of that, and gave it to Uncle
Tinsley. How these charming, lovely people will contort themselves. I live not... Not
too far from Monticello, and here's the man who declared, "All men are created equal."
"And I own a bunch of them!" And it's just... The weird contradictions that exist in these
communities. And so, I was trying to capture something. And I do love where I live, and
I love the people around there. And one of the things that takes place in The Silver
Star is the integration of the school.
MI: Yes.
JW: And when I moved to West Virginia, they were real... They had just recently integrated,
and it fascinated me. Just the pain, the anger, on both sides. And I befriended an African-American
woman who told me, "I don't want to go to no Cracker school!"
MI: And that line's in the book.
JW: I thought, I was like, "I thought that was the whole idea! We're letting you come
to our school!" And it was sort of bewildering to me, like, "You don't want to?" She said,
"Why would we want to go to your school? We've got a great school. It's our school, we can
be... I was a cheerleader, my sister was in line to come a homecoming queen. We'll never
be the Homecoming Queen of your school." And it was fascinating to me. So, I put all that
in because I think most white folks don't know that. And I researched that, because
I was... What if my friend is unique like that? Maybe this wasn't universal at the time.
And there were a couple of papers written about that. And I found it genuinely fascinating.
And I think that... You know, I researched this, because I think it would be incredible
hubris to assume that I know, or knew, what teenage black kids thought about going to
the white school. I have no idea.
JW: : So, I'm a big fan of research, of getting the facts. I don't, I can't assume, so talk
to people who do know, and I find it fascinating... I read books for several reasons. One is for
the emotional connection, but the other is to learn things that I didn't know. And if
I could understand that about a community... By the way, not only this woman, but some
of the research that I had indicated that the thing that really brought the schools
together, ultimately, was sports.
MI: Yeah. Football.
JW: It was sports. In the case of the school that I went to, there was this really tall
African-American, Maurice "The Tree" Robinson, and all of a sudden all these crackers wanted
to hang out with Maurice, and it was this incredible unifying thing that these people
who had wanted nothing to do with one another, all of a sudden were on the same team, literally.
MI: It was all about winning, right?
JW: Yeah.
MI: And that's all that mattered.
JW: Exactly.
MI: That's all that mattered. Tell me a little bit about Charlotte. I wanna get into this
character a little bit, and just for everyone, not sure who's read the book and who hasn't,
but Charlotte is the mother in this case. And she is such an interesting character,
because she's a negligent mom, yes, but brilliant. And there's a line that she blurts out, and
I've got it here, and I just wanna go over it with you, Jeannette, and talk about where
it came from, because Charlotte has left her girls for weeks, and she shows up when Liz,
her girl, has an issue. And I don't wanna give it away for those of you who haven't
read the book, but something happens to Liz, and so she comes back to be the caretaker
that she isn't usually. She's never there. And she says... At one point she says, "Don't
be afraid of the dark places. If you can shine a light on them, you'll find treasure there."
JW: I love that you love that line. I think...
MI: I love that line.
JW: I think it's my favourite line in the book.
MI: I love that line.
JW: And it was something my mother said to me one time, and as wacky and as infuriating
as my mother can be, every now and then she comes up with these incredible gems, and I
thought that was one of them. I'm gonna steal that! [chuckle] I'm glad you picked up on
that, that this woman who, in certain ways, drops the ball big time.
MI: So, so badly. She drops the ball so badly.
JW: But she gives what she can. She does, from time to time, come out with wonderful
things like that, that if you can take them, they're jewels, and don't expect... Don't
expect Charlotte to be a normal mom 'cause she's never gonna be.
MI: No. But that's a line that'll stop you in your tracks because that's a line to live
by, isn't it?
JW: That's... When I sign books, that's the line I put in.
MI: Really?
JW: Yeah.
MI: I didn't know that.
JW: Yeah, I know you didn't, that's why I'm so impressed you picked up on it. That is
my favourite, I think, line from the entire book. "Just shine your light on the dark...
MI: I love that line. And there's another Charlotte line, listen to this. "Don't be
someone else's cheerleader. Be the star of your own show even if there's no audience."
[laughter]
MI: Love that. I love that. And Jeannette was talking about the cheerleading theme in
this book, because as the school is getting integrated, a lot of it is about the cheerleading
squad. Who can try out? Can the African-American girls try out? What's gonna happen to them?
The white cheerleaders have their boyfriends on this team, and they're afraid that African-American
boys are gonna take their boyfriends' spots, so they're boycotting the cheerleaders. There's
all this stuff going on, and then she comes up with this line, which I love. Another line
to live by.
JW: Bless your heart for seeing that. But again, this whole anger and mishegoss going
on about the cheerleaders, this is something I've witnessed. And white girls were quitting
the squad and it was bewildering to me. I'd grown up sort of in the Southwest, and I'd
never witnessed anything like this. What is all this anger about? And these deep wounds,
and all these people wishing it was the way it used to be. But back when it was "used
to be," that wasn't any good either, and just this longing for the past and "back when we
had power." And this community is losing power in so many ways. These people who... They're
clinging to anything that they can to feel superior to other people. And some people
think that the way to feel good about yourself is to feel superior to other people, and I
think I... I kind of used to think that, too, and writing my first book was such a revelation,
'cause... That doesn't make you feel good about it. You feel isolated when you try to
feel superior to other people. It's making those connections, and understanding that
you have so much more in common than you have different, and that's the way, and only once
you sort of let down those barriers that you erect to think you're protecting yourself,
and distance yourself from people who are unlike you. You let those barriers down, that's
when the magic starts happening.
MI: That's when the magic starts happening, and also the importance of family. There's
all this turmoil going on, but there's always family, and in this book, Bean finds out who
her father is. Hence, the name of the book, "The Silver Star." He won a silver star in
the Korean War, and she finds out, and she finds her father's family, and we discover
all these things through her eyes. But that connection, that family connection is an overarching
theme between the sisters, between the mother and the two girls, the uncle and the girls,
they've got family, if not anything else at all.
JW: And that is, as you said, a central theme, because it's just so important as a source
of strength for Bean, who'd been travelling all around and didn't know anyone or anything.
And, to some degree, it echoes my experience. I mean, it's not verbatim, but I found great
strength and great love in finally finding certain things out, that you belong somewhere
in the world.
MI: I found it astounding, and I'm just gonna share with you because Jeannette and I were
able to have a bit of a conversation before we came out here to be with you, and Jeannette
said to me, "I didn't think anybody would care about what I had to say. As a writer,
I didn't think anybody would care, and didn't think anybody would embrace what I had to
say." And that took me aback.
JW: I was so prepared to be met with contempt and ridicule, that I thought I would get fired
from my job, as I mentioned earlier. I think I saw the world as a place filled with potential
enemies. After having written this book, I see the world as a place filled with potential
friends. It's been a complete life-changer for me, and I can meet a complete stranger,
we cut right through the small talk and share intimate things, and... I'm not bragging about
myself, what I'm bragging about is the power of story telling. And it's something I've
only recently come to truly understand. Because I've told my story, it gives people the courage
to tell me theirs. And sometimes, people come up to me, complete strangers, and this woman
told me one time that her mother had locked her in the basement. And she found a way to
sneak out and go to the local library where she studied nursing, and the librarian helped
her get into a nursing school. And this woman told me this as a Professor of Nursing. And
she said, "After having read your book, and heard you speak, I think I have courage to
tell my own children about my past." She said, "They're always asking me and I change the
topic." I said, "I think you'll be surprised about how receptive they are. How old are
they?" She said, "31 and 33."
MI: Wow!
JW: So this woman was hiding this story. I wanted to shake her by her shoulders, "What
are you talking about? Why would you be ashamed? That's such a great story. Its a story of
heroism and triumph." But I remember, "Oh yeah, I was ashamed, too." And shame is a
funny emotion. Somebody one said to me, "Secrets are a little bit like vampires. They suck
the life out of you, but they can only exist only in the darkness." Once they're exposed
to light, there's a moment of horror, but then, poof, they lose their power.
MI: Isn't that the truth?
JW: I found it to be so true. And now that I've told my story, it doesn't haunt me at
all. It's just something that happened to me. In fact, going back to what Charlotte
said, "If you can shine your light in those dark areas, that's where you find your greatest
source of strength." I think everything in life is both a blessing and a curse. And it's
entirely up to you what you choose to focus on. And these things that we dislike about
ourselves, if you're able to just flip it over, there's the blessing.
MI: But it takes courage.
JW: Oh it takes a lot of...
MI: It takes tremendous courage to do that.
JW: That's a scary looking thing and you have to confront it. You have to confront it.
MI: Did you get to a point where it wasn't even a choice?
JW: Yes, very well said.
MI: Right? It wasn't even a choice at one point.
JW: I gotta do it. I just can't do this anymore.
MI: Doesn't matter whether the job's on the line, whatever's... I have to get it out.
JW: Absolutely. That's very well said, yes. And part of it was seeing my mom on the streets,
but I still... It took six weeks to write the first version of this book, of The Glass
Castle. And I spent five years rewriting it.
MI: Five years rewriting?
JW: Trying to be honest. And by that I don't mean I was lying, but what really happened.
MI: Had you buried some things?
JW: Oh, deep, deep, deep. [chuckle] You know, not just buried, but when I wrote them, my
agent read it and she said, "You wrote this as though it happened to somebody else." And
I realized how I used journalism to distance myself. And humour, some things I wrote as
funny that weren't funny. Some things were pretty funny and then I wrote them as funny.
But, yeah, five years to be honest, and in that to find the voice and how I really felt
about these things.
MI: That's incredible. It must've been almost a relief to get to the fiction and be able
to...
JW: Or was it? No. [laughter] No, I, no.
MI: There are other issues now.
JW: There are other issues.
MI: What are the issues?
JW: Believe it or not, it's the same thing. It's still trying to be honest.
MI: Really?
JW: To be true. What is true? What... If I read a book and it doesn't sound real to me
whether it's fiction or non-fiction, it's a waste of my time. I want to learn something
about people. I want to make that emotional connection. If somebody didn't get deep enough
and give me something that makes me understand human nature better, or feel that I've made
a friend, then I don't know why I just read that book. So, the challenge becomes making
these people real, and bringing up issues that make people think. The number of people
who've told me that reading, again I hope it doesn't sound like I'm bragging, that reading
The Glass Castle helped them with themselves, helped them deal with their own issues, is
staggering to me. So, it's really not about the writer, it's more about the reader, the
effect you have on them. And I can do that with fiction, I'm a happy camper. The fact
that you quoted a couple of lines, it meant a lot to me. That's why we tell our stories.
As nice as the bestseller list is and all of that, that's not what it's about. It's
about emotion and being real, and if you can do that through fiction that's great. If you
can do it through non-fiction that's great, too.
MI: Coming from the life that you did, did you often look at others, other people and
think, "Look at that perfect family over there."
JW: Oh, all the time.
MI: "Look at... There couldn't possibly be anyone else like us."
JW: All the time.
MI: Although there are people coming up to you all the time now, "We were just like you,
and maybe worse." Right?
[laughter]
JW: All the time. And that's the great gift that readers have given me in exchange for
coming clean, but all the time. All these people with their perfect lives. But it's
funny because in the first... Another reason that The Glass Castle took so long is I was
trying to write a little bit about my first husband's world that was filled with fabulously
wealthy people who managed to be so miserable. And, I was trying to write about them... And
she was very very thin, and I was very very thin at the time, and she saying, "You're
not eating because of mother issues?" I thought, "Well, that's a funny way to put it."
[laughter]
JW: But, yeah, I suppose so. And then I found out that she didn't eat on purpose. "Why would
you not eat on purpose?" And she said, "Well my therapist helped me understand that it's
because I had... That I'm angry with my mother." And that didn't make any sense to me at all.
"If you're angry with your mom wouldn't you eat her food?" [laughter] I don't understand
that at all. And, I'd never met somebody anorexic before. And for somebody who had to dig food
out of the garbage, not eating on purpose, that's fascinating! So I tried to write about
it, but it sounded like I was making fun of her. And there's nothing funny about anorexia.
We poor folk have not cornered the market on suffering. Let the anorexics write about
their world and let me write about my world. And help people not of my world understand
it and I'll read her book and understand her because that's what it's about.
JW: But yeah, I did think that everybody sort of had perfect worlds. I was at a signing
one time, a girl a couple of years ahead of me who had been a been a cheerleader, perfect
little figure and flouncing around in her little maroon and white cheerleading outfit.
She came to my reading and asked me to sign a copy of "The Glass Castle" and I thought
this is "Alice Through the Looking Glass" here because the most popular girl in the
school is asking the least popular girl in school for an autograph, and she handed me
the book and she said, "This book really resonated with me. My father was an alcoholic and I
ended up marrying an alcoholic. And I've really struggled with sorting all those issues out
and you've helped me". And I thought, "Wow, don't assume."
MI: Never assume.
JW: Don't assume that you know anything about the shallow gossip columnist, about the crazy
homeless woman, or about the popular cheerleader. We all have our stories and the great blessing
is that I have been given now is that people come up and tell me their stories. And it's
been a life changer for me. One of the many things that I've leaned is trust people. First
you have to trust yourself, before you can trust other people you have to have that belief
in yourself and then you can start to open up to other people. 'Cause if you walk around
life like this, nobody's heard me... I used to. One of the blessing of my childhood is
that I'm a fighter and a scrapper and one of the curses of my childhood is that I'm
a fighter and a scrapper. If somebody looked at me cross-eyed, I'd kick their butt okay?
It's quite a revelation that's you don't always have to fight. In fact, life is really sweet
if you're able to accept the goodness and the kindness and you don't knock somebody
cross-eyed every time they look at you the wrong way. And it is... And I still have issues,
I will always have issues!
MI: Don't we all honey?
JW: I've got issues! The first time my husband tried to eat off my plate, he almost lost
his hand. [laughter] I will always have food issues, but we all have issues.
MI: We do.
JW: We all have it and I think that one of the tricks is not pretending that you don't
or avoiding them, but to understand and even embrace them and put them to work for you.
MI: As you said, Jeannette, we all have stories. It's just being brave enough to be truthful
about what those stories are.
JW: That's exactly it.
MI: Bring them to light and be truthful about them.
JW: And once you're truthful the truth will set you free. It will. The truth is complicated
and can't be condensed into a snarky little paragraph like I was trying to do. Sometimes
what is accurate is not what's true and that's why it takes so long to get at the truth and
that's what you've got to try to do in fiction as well. And you can't rely on what happened.
MI: Did your mom read "The Silver Star"?
JW: She did.
MI: What did she think of it? And did she see Charlotte as herself? Did she see herself
in Charlotte?
JW: She did not recognize...
MI: She didn't recognize Charlotte, did she?
JW: But she thought Charlotte was a lovely woman who... [laughter] Who just did what
she could to feel better about herself and she hoped people were nice to her so that
was her take on Charlotte. But it was her favourite of the three books I've written.
She was actually fine about "The Glass Castle". She was...
MI: That was my next question.
JW: She was upset about my description of her driving, other than that...
[laughter]
MI: That's what she was upset about?
JW: She said, "I don't see everything the way you see it, but I understand why you see
it the way you see it. And you had to write the truth as you saw it." And I gotta say
with everything I said about her, that's pretty impressive that she could say that. She didn't
read Half Broke Horses. I said, "Mom it's your story." She goes, "I know. That's why
I don't want to read them, I know it."
[laughter]
JW: And I said "What if you don't like the way I wrote something about it." She said,
"It's your business." And I said, "But you can get it changed... " and she said, "Well
I don't want a fight over it, who cares... Who cares what you wrote. " And you know the
thing mom has no proprietary sense over me, and that's both good and bad. And she doesn't
try to make me into anything I'm not. And I've come to believe that's an amazing wonderful
thing. It has its downsides, but it also has its upsides. I've never depended on her excessively.
I learnt independence very early, didn't get homesick when I went away to college, all
sorts of advantages. So there are great gifts to a childhood like mine. I really do believe
that.
MI: Do people judge you Jeannette because your mom lives with you now? Do they wonder
what the heck are you doing?
JW: Some do. Some cannot understand...
MI: Knowing your story?
JW: Why I would let this woman... Why I would take care of her when she never took care
of me?
MI: And why do you?
JW: Well because I love her. And because I'm able... I'm so fortunate that I'm in a position
that I can do this. She gives me great lines. [laughter] She's a source of great joy for
me, a great joy. The other day these stupid carpenter bees were flying around our head.
She saw me eyeballing them, I was thinking that I've got to get some poison and kill
these stupid carpenter bees. She saw me watching and she said, "Aren't they wonderful? They're
so friendly, it's kind of like having pets you don't need to feed." [laughter] Who thinks
like this? [laughter] She's just a constant source of wonderment for me. [laughter] She
rides horses. She paints... She's 79. She paints like a fiend. And she's always joyful
now. I'll see her and she'll have a piece of rock and she's just looking at the way
the light reflects on it. She's a hoarder, which I didn't realize when I was growing
up because our houses were always burning down. [laughter] But she's happy. She's a
happy woman.
MI: Was there a journey to forgiveness there?
JW: If she would have died 15 years ago, I don't think I would have cried.
MI: Really?
JW: I don't think I was angry, but I was anaesthetized. It was just sort of, she has nothing to do
with me and I have nothing to do with her.
MI: That's an interesting way of putting it.
JW: Even though I talked to her on a regular basis, I was just very... Her life is her
life, and my life is my life. We're separate, we have nothing to do with each other. I think
only once I was able to come to terms with my past, could I appreciate the gifts she
gave me. And I do believe she's the most optimistic human being in the world. And I believe she
gave me the gift of optimism, the gift of self-determination. The line about the cheerleaders
also came... When I wanted to become a cheerleader, I was so jealous of all the cheerleaders.
And they were cute with their little flouncy skirts and I was all knees and buck teeth.
And it was just no way I could have been a cheerleader. She said, "You don't want to
be a cheerleader anyway." And she, that line... It was when I was around 12 years old.
MI: Then it stuck.
JW: And I have always remembered that line because I thought it was really wise. And
only by revisiting my own past, did I learn some of the lessons I should have learnt a
long time ago. You know, I always remember that line, but there were a lot of other things.
The writing, the memoir writing process, if any of you are considering doing it I cannot
recommend it strongly enough. Even if you don't want to get published. We all know things
we don't realize we know. The first time I read my own book back, I was a little shocked.
MI: There's power in putting pen to paper.
JW: There's such power.
MI: Yeah.
JW: And seeing the words and asking yourself, "Am I being honest here?" and "What really
happened?" And it's very powerful therapy. And I don't even think I forgave my mom as
much as accepted. Because forgiveness, it would be setting myself up as a victim and
I don't see it that way.
MI: Were you angry?
JW: No, disappointed... Or disgusted maybe. Disgusted and just dismissive. And when I
was interviewing for Half Broke Horses, she was going on about the Havasupai Indians,
and the Hualapai Indians, and the Yavapai Indians, and what the words mean, and when
the language split off in the year 800. How did she know all this stuff? She doesn't know
my birthday. [laughter] How did she know all this? She must be making this up. But I Googled
it and she was dead on with everything. I went back to her, "Ma, how do you know all
of this stuff and you don't even know my birthday?" And she said, "I don't find your birthday
particularly interesting."
[laughter]
MI: Well, that was honest.
JW: She doesn't know her social security number, but she can tell you the layers of rock in
the Grand Canyon from the very bottom, the year that it was all... If it fascinates her,
she'll never forget it. She thinks differently than most people. I wasn't angry as much as
I was frustrated and I didn't think people would understand. And there was this weird
combination of love and pride and shame, and just all everything mushed together. And I
just, I did not think that I could have a normal life because of her. And, in a way
I didn't. I had a better than normal life. I've had an incredibly wonderful life once
I could come to terms with my past.
MI: How did you do that though? Because I'm thinking, as a little girl, all a little girl
really wants is to be the centre of her mom's world. It would be crushing for a mother to
say to a little girl, "You know, your birthday doesn't matter," because that means you don't
matter.
JW: I had my birthday wrong for most of my life. I finally set out for my birth certificate
when I came to New York City. And we had it on the wrong date. So... And mom said, "I
must have forgotten what it... " So, but I was never the centre of my mother's life.
And I hope this doesn't sound bitter, but I just I wasn't. I never was. I never really
meant that much to her. And it's just something I accepted way early on. My father, that's
another story. My father just made me feel like the most wonderful thing in the world.
And that's why despite... And I know the man was flawed, I know he was an alcoholic, I
adored him. And sometimes I fantasize to this day if he were still alive maybe we could
get him to stop drinking. Wouldn't happen, but I believe he also gave me incredible gifts.
The gift of dreaming, belief that maybe one of these days I would have a nice castle to
live in, a glass castle. So, you know, the parent gives a kid self-esteem and a belief
in themselves. And the tools to realize their dreams. And I think that's the greatest gift
they can give them.
MI: Your siblings feel the same way?
JW: No.
[laughter]
MI: They don't, do they? No, you're one special lady. They don't, no. That was a quick no.
JW: It's so funny, you know. Sitting down... When I ask mom, "What do I tell people when
they ask me about you?" and she said, "Tell them the truth, that's simple enough." But
the truth is not so simple. And sitting down and trying to tell the truth. And anybody
with siblings knows, you sit down and talk about your childhood, we all have our own
truths. And the facts can be exactly the same, and the truth you go away with is entirely
different. So, there were certain things about my childhood that I genuinely loved. Some
things I didn't necessarily love, but I wouldn't trade it in for anything. I wouldn't. I think
that one of... I have a great life now. I live in a house with four flush toilets. Life
is good. Anybody, and I bet you there's a few in here who grew up without indoor plumbing
and you know what a miracle a toilet is. Just move the little handle and the stuff disappears.
[laughter] And I can go to a grocery store and buy anything I want. And that's a miracle
to me too. I don't have to stop at three dollars. I don't have to ask the grocer if he has any
old food he's gonna throw away. This is a miracle to me.
MI: And it's interesting because you refer to them as food issues but that permeates
this as well, when these girls have to live on chicken pot pies because their mother takes
off and they don't know when she's coming back. And so, it's chicken pot pies for supper
every night.
JW: Yeah. And again, from your own experience. And I have a different relationship with food
than most people do. And it's funny to me when my friends say that they eat when they
get anxious or upset because I have the opposite. I do not turn to food for comfort. I don't
have that association. Meal time and having a mother who gives you food, it's just not
part of my... It's not part of my Pavlovian response. [chuckle] I don't have an association
that links nurturing and food. Food is fuel, that's all it is for me.
MI: What does family mean to you?
JW: Wow! That's a big question. [chuckle] That's a big question, and what it should
mean and sometimes does mean, because when somebody abdicates their role as a protector
then you have to take whatever role they give you. But when somebody who's willing to stick
by you, whether they're related to you or not. When Uncle Tinsley sort of stuck by and
Bean discovered our cousins and they became a surrogate family. So, sometimes family is
where you'll find it.
MI: It sure is. Do you think that you could write about a family that doesn't have dysfunction
in it?
JW: Oh no. [laughter] No way. It wouldn't be that interesting. No. I'm never gonna write
about thrillers, I'm never gonna do whodunits or whatever. And this is what fascinates me,
what motivates people. What... People's fears, people trying to struggle through tough times.
And it's the sort of books I gravitate towards as well.
MI: This story I could see on the big screen. I could. As I was reading it, I was seeing
it, if that makes sense.
JW: It would be easier to turn this into a movie than The Glass Castle.
MI: It would be, yes it would be, yes it would be. Isn't that something that would make you
happy?
JW: Oh yeah. I'm shameless, of course.
[laughter]
MI: Some authors would say, "Oh, they wouldn't handle the material correctly", and "Oh, I
wanna have... "
JW: The more the merrier. The thing is that... Unless they completely, completely botch it,
but the thing is whenever a book gets made into a movie more people read the book. And
so, as far as I'm concerned, if it brings a wider audience that's all good. It's all
good.
MI: I wanna get back to the family discussion and why you don't have kids.
JW: You know, none of us girls have kids. My brother does.
MI: Why do you think that is, huh?
[laughter]
JW: I remember very vividly being 13 years old. I took over the mom role for the summer
and I very vividly remember looking around thinking, "This is really hard. This is hard".
I thought I could be a better mom than my mother. I thought I could pay the bills and
get my dad to stop drinking, and I didn't and I was giving dad drinking money. And I
remember looking at my mom when she came back. She was 38, I was 13, and I was thinking,
"She's not old, but she's not young either. And I don't wanna be 38 years old and living
in an un-heated shack with four hungry kids, and I'm gonna get my ducks in a row before
I have children." And you know something? The ducks never get in a row.
[laughter]
JW: I always thought I'd have kids, I love kids, but I never had that drive. They say
that there's something called parented children, it's a syndrome. And if you take on a bunch
of adult responsibilities as a child you're less inclined to want to do it as an... It's
not that I don't love children, it's more, "Been there, done that". And my husband has
a daughter from a previous marriage, my brother has children, and I'm very close to all of
my husband's nieces and nephews. And they all love Aunt Jeannette who will go out and
dig in the compost pile for worms. And so, I have no regrets. I have no regrets about
not having children. I do wonder what kind of mom I would have been if I would have...
The school of hard knocks, "I went without food and you... " or whether I would have
over indulged them. And I think all parents wrestle with that and it's a tough thing to
know when people have so much today. And they got iPods and they got iPhones and they got...
And how do you teach children to appreciate what they have?
JW: And I think it's a matter of exposure. This is not a plug for my book, but the number
of, and I say this derisively but I don't mean it, of rich kids who've read my story
and then gone to their parents and said, "Mom, I had no idea". And it just opens up their
eyes and opens up their minds. And whether you do it through that or take them to work
in soup kitchens. Kids are very impressionable and very empathetic, and if you get them before
they really start passing judgements and just open your eyes, they're really good at figuring
out, "Yeah know, I'm kind of lucky". And I talked to one young woman who after having
read my book cancelled her coming out party and opened up a homeless shelter for teens
with it.
MI: Really?
JW: Yeah, yeah. And, again that's... If I got struck down by lightning now, I'd say,
"That's fine with me."
MI: You've changed lives and you never thought you would.
JW: I never thought I would.
MI: You were just trying to change your own.
JW: I was just trying to come to terms with my own past.
MI: Yeah. You were trying to get your own ducks in a row.
JW: Exactly. And that's the lesson I've learnt, that these things that we have, that we don't
like about... If you're able to share that, not only does it help you, it helps other
people and it's such a life changer.
MI: What has been the best part of fame?
JW: Oh, I'm not... I don't want to...
MI: And I knew you were gonna say that. [laughter] I knew you were going to say, I'm not famous.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. What's the best part of having so many people having read your books?
JW: That, I feel that I have so many new friends that I haven't met them all. Sometimes they
write me letters, sometimes they come to event like this, the barriers are down. There's
no pretence, there's no holding back. They'll tell me stories about themselves. They feel
that they know me. It blows me away. I wake up every day and pinch myself. I can't believe
my fortune, but it's not about me. It's about the goodness of people that I did not expect.
And if you project fear and anger and distrust, that's what you are gonna get back, but if
you start projecting openness, then oh my gosh, people... You know, I get these letters
from kids in school, "My dad's a drunk and we drive a beaten up car, the other kids in
school make fun of me, but after having read your story, I thought if she made it I can
too." You know, it doesn't get any better than that.
MI: No, it doesn't. Conversely, is there a challenging part of all of this?
JW: I wish I could respond to all the letters I get with the time and compassion that I
should. People pour their hearts out to me, and I've got a big old stack and I try to
write everybody but I'm way behind and you just sort of say thank you, I appreciate it.
I'm so far behind, if anybody's written me a letter, I'll get to it, I will get to it
but that is very, that is such a... I feel I can't give back as much as I'm getting.
MI: It's amazing that you even take the time to write and you don't have people.
JW: Well, if you saw these letters, there's no way you couldn't respond. The kids, you
know, it was funny when the Glass Castle was very first published, the very first interview
I did, Diane Rehm on NPR, and the very first call was somebody saying, "Fascinating story,
I don't believe a word of it.
MI: Really?
JW: And I was like 'cause it was so weird because my husband had to pull the story out
of me in the first place and it never occurred to me that somebody wouldn't believe because
it was embarrassing. Why would I say all these embarrassing things about myself? And, the
gentleman, I'm sure he was a nice guy, but he might want to get out of the gated community
from time to time because some people say, I refuse to believe that poverty existed like
that in America in the 1970s.
MI: And still does. And still does.
JW: It still does. And if I can open people's eyes to other people's situations, like that,
and if I can open people's eyes to their own situation, and if by talking about this and
going to events such as this, keep the dialogue going.
MI: And that's what it's about because, that's what it's about and it's really, it's the
ignorance...
JW: It's ignorance, and not cruelty, not vicious, not knowing and that is why the truth is so
important, so valuable.
MI: The truth will set you free.
JW: It will.
MI: Is there anything at this point, that you still desperately want that you don't
have? Is there a laundry list?
JW: The laundry list was filled a long time ago. I think there's a Hebrew, Dayenu I think,
and it means this is enough. If I got nothing more in life, nothing. I mean, and I reached
that point a long time ago. This is so much more than I would have ever... I used to dream
and pray and wish for a bathroom. That was one of my fondest hopes and people ask me, why aren't you bitter and
why aren't you angry? I got three bathrooms now, [laughter] I can do anything that I want.
Life is so wonderful and I think that sometimes people... I certainly know in America that
we forget how much we have, we take it for granted. I will never take anything for granted,
never, never. Oscar Wilde once said, "A necessity is a luxury once sampled." And I'm afraid
there's some truth to that. Once you got the iPhone, I could never live without this thing.
I could never survive without it.
MI: But then, it's about wanting more.
JW: Wanting more.
MI: We're insatiable. We never have enough.
JW: And I think that the great thing about not having anything is you know how little
you need. You know how tough you are, that you can survive just about anything. Life
is a lot sweeter when you have the luxuries, but they are luxuries.
MI: What can't you live without?
JW: My husband.
MI: That's very sweet.
JW: I've got a keeper. He's a good one.
MI: He's got a good one too.
JW: Thank you.
MI: Tina, you wrapping us? Oh questions, okay. We'll take questions, but you're wrapping
this, 'cause I could talk all night.
JW: We gonna go afterwards to talk all night.
[laughter]
MI: So, I'm sure... You've been lovely, by the way, just amazing, I have to share with
you.
[applause]
JW: Thank you. Thank you.
MI: I have to share with you, before we came out, Jeannette said, "And Marcy, just to let
you know, ask anything you want." And I said, "You don't understand." I said, "Jeannette,
I do morning show and I can't tell you how many guests we have that come in with their
people, with a list this long of things we're not supposed to ask." And how many times,
I've said to them, "Then why are you here?" You know, really? "You're here to be interviewed,
let us interview you." But Jeannette said, "Anything you want, no boundaries whatsoever."
[applause]
MI: And I so appreciate that.
JW: Thank you.
MI: So appreciate that. So, questions folks? Please, the microphone is right there. Don't
be shy.
[pause]
MI: Okay, it is hard for the first person.
Speaker 3: For the short people. It struck me when you were talking about kids and entitlement
and so on, I am a parent of three. Do you... Are you asked, or do you go out of your way
to take opportunity to speak to young audiences about your experience and draw some of those
pictures for them?
JW: Oh, absolutely. Yes. I do a lot of speaking at high schools and universities. In fact,
I'm going to be speaking later at King's College, I think it is, and it's often... The Glass
Castle is often a common read in communities in colleges and high schools. And I get very
spirited conversations, it's fascinating. And the kids are really really smart about
it and I think it can open up an astonishing dialogue, again, I hope it doesn't sound like
I'm bragging about this sort of thing, but very often these kids, they're all getting
together for the first time and it enables them to discuss sensitive issues without invading
their own privacy. And I've had so many teachers tell me that usually getting kids to discuss
a book is like pulling teeth, they don't wanna stop talking about this. The number of high
school students and college students who've told me that The Glass Castle is the first
book they've ever read cover-to-cover is a little astonishing to me. And they'll say
it's also the only... Also, I hear people say it's the only book they've ever enjoyed
and then they often follow that up with, "And it's made me realize that maybe I do enjoy
reading. I just need to find books that were written for people like me."
JW: And not to knock the classics, I think that classics are great for AP, but with kids
who are not necessarily inclined to care about what happened to Hester Prynne and her scarlet
letter, I just think that if you wanna reach these kids, who consider education a poisonous
word. Reading... I tell these kids, reading is great, it's like reality television, it's
storytelling, that's all it is. And somehow a lot of kids out there think it's things
that only nerds do. So I have wonderful conversations with kids about reading, but also about the
issues of independence, self-sufficiency, being nicer to the poor kids, the poor kids
having maybe a little bit more self-esteem and think they're not so different from the
rich kids, the circumstances are just different.
JW: A teacher told me that she was having her kids read The Glass Castle because it's
an impoverished area and Dickens just wasn't getting through to them and she said there
was a girl... There was one girl in particular she was trying to get through to, she said,
"She's a good girl, but she's had a few brushes with the law." And this girl slams my book
down on the desk and she says, "That's a very upsetting book to me." And the teacher said,
"Why?" And she said, "There's a scene where the mother takes three kids to go shoplifting.
That is wrong!" And the teacher said, "Wow, this is great! I can have a conversation about
shoplifting and crime and punishment."
JW: She said, "What bothered you about that scene?" And this young woman says, "When you
go shoplifting for one of the kids, you've got to get something for all of them."
[laughter]
MI: Thank you.
[laughter]
JW: It was quite the eye-opening conversation. [laughter] She said, "I've always thought
of this girl as somebody who doesn't follow rules, but I understood after that, it's not
that she doesn't follow rules, she was taught a different set of rules."
MI: Yeah.
JW: So that's why we read, that's why we share stories.
MI: Great question.
Speaker 4: Next year, I'm writing my eighth grade speech, could you please tell me one
thing that you wanna say to the people I'm speaking to?
JW: I'm sorry, what speech?
S4: My eighth grade speech.
JW: I would say write about something that means a great deal to you. Write about something
you care about, don't try to fake it. Write about something that you think about a lot
and write from the heart. Write about something that is revealing and personal and that you
think will help people understand you better. It doesn't have to be too revealing, but it
can be something that, that people don't know, that you can tell something... You know something
that other people don't know and if you can put that into words. And now this is also
important, don't be afraid to rewrite. Good writing is rewriting, write it, set it aside,
write it again, read it out loud. Write in your own voice, don't be using big words where
a little word would do better. Get across your message, get it across powerfully and
figure out, what is it that you're trying to say? What is it you're trying to convince
the reader of? And good luck on it.
Speaker 5: Thanks for writing your books. They're amazing and they touch on so many
intimate experiences, so many personal experiences in your life.
JW: Thank you.
S5: And go back so far, your memories stretch to an early age and so many, really difficult
and dramatic experiences, and I'm wondering how it is that you are able to remember all
of this stuff. Is it shared experiences with your siblings and stories as you grow up,
that help you to remember things. And I say this because I grew up in a family of four,
difficult times and sometimes I think I repressed because when I talk to my siblings I remember
things I don't quite remember. And so, I was just wondering if there is an element of that
in some of your writing? Just sharing experiences and remembering through what they remember?
And I guess the other thing you talked about is you all come away with different perception
as siblings of your childhood side. Just wondered if you can talk about that?
JW: All of my siblings have read The Glass Castle and nobody disputes a single fact in
it, but they all have a different perception. My very favourite memory from my entire life
is getting a star, when we had no money to buy Christmas presents and I wanted a planet,
dad said, "What the hell, its Christmas. You want a planet, you got a planet." And he gave
me Venus. And it's my most treasured memory ever. And I told that story at my father's
funeral and my sister, Lori, folds her arms and says, "Isn't that like that sorry SOB
dad of ours to go give away something that doesn't belong to him in the first place."
[laughter] And so, my fondest memory is one of her most bitter. And so, it's fascinating
the difference in perception. But, so far as memory, I used to think we all know much
more than we realize, and if you sit down and just pull at it then it all comes out.
Brain scientists will tell you that traumatic memories are stored in a certain part of the
brain, where so many people remember exactly what they were doing when Kennedy was shot
because it stays there. In layman's terms, it plays in a loop in your head.
JW: So, there are a couple of those things that not only it wouldn't have been hard to
remember them. What was hard was try to forget them. And so, my husband who suggested that
I open up with the burn scene. And I said, "That's no big deal." It wasn't that, I didn't
die from it or anything. He said it was a big deal, Jeannette trust me. Said, "That
scene is going to depend on detail, put all the detail you can remember." Okay. So, I
typed it out and he looked at me and said, "You can take some of these detail out of
that." [chuckle] And said, "How could you possibly remember something that happened
from what when you were three." I bet if we did a show of hands. How many people here
remember something from when they were three? And I bet with many of you it's a traumatic
memory, yeah. So, these memories they lodge in your head. And I very vividly... I remember
the heat on the side of fence, it was mostly on this side. I remember the flames looking
up, I remember the smell. So, I opened with that. And then I just wrote down the most
vivid scenes that I could remember, more challenging than the details from the scenes was what
happened in between, but more over putting them in order. Does this happen in Battle
Mountain?
JW: So, there were certain things. Now, I didn't keep journals, I didn't interview anybody,
including my siblings, I relied on my memory. That being said, I'm sure that there must
have been some things I got wrong. But you get as close as you can, you get as close
as you can to the truth. And I was really glad that when I showed it to my brother after
I wrote it, there were a couple of things. He said, "I didn't think you realized what
was going on at that point, I can't believe you remember that." But our memories were
very, very similar. So, people have asked me, "How much can you make up as a memoirist?"
I think you don't make anything up. The soft cover, the paperback of The Glass Castle came
out around the whole time of the James Frey controversy. So, a lot of people were, "You
make things up." No you don't, no, no. I remember the cheetah that licked my hand as being gorgeous
and noble. Brian said it was mangy flea-bitten critter. But it was a cheetah, it wasn't a
Barracuda.
JW: So, you will have your perceptions. But once you start making things up, that's a
slippery slope, even if its just composite characters or whatever. Because people turn
to you for the truth. How did you survive poverty? How did you survive the Holocaust?
How did you break your drug addiction? Once you start lying to other people you are lying
to yourself first of all. But once you start lying to other people, you betray that trust.
So, if you are looking to write a memoir and you are forgetting something, you can't get
something right, do the best you can. You might want to interview other people, but
it is getting as close to the truth as possible. And it's impossible to get to the absolute
truth. As a former journalist, and I'm sure you will back me up on this, getting at the
truth is almost impossible. There is so many different versions. You can be interviewing
someone about something that happened yesterday and you are going to get different versions,
and it's all about getting as close to what really happened as you can.
S5: It's about your truth, yeah. It's about what you lived, right?
JW: It's about what you live, that being said. The people who say, "This is my truth." 'Cause
there was this woman who wrote a memoir about being in a gang in South LA and being raised...
That she was half native American and she was raised by a black woman in South LA. It
turns out she was a Valley girl who went to a fancy private school, and she was, "Well,
I feel that this is my truth." Uh-huh [laughter] No, no. That's called fiction, okay. And that's
emotional truth, but it is your perceptions and try to honour... And some empathy as well,
other people's truths as well. I think you shouldn't go around trying to vilify or get
revenge or whatever, but as close as you can to the truth.
S5: Thank you.
Speaker 6: I love The Glass Castle and its been a few years since I've read it, and I'm
looking forward to rereading it again starting in the next few days. I agree with you that
I think that often character building experiences come from a difficult childhood. If you've
have difficult childhood it's obviously character building. What distinguished you from your
siblings and other people who have a difficult childhood in allowing you to rise to the top,
when others stumble and don't accomplish anything?
JW: I give my father credit. I think that if you have one person in your life who thinks
you are great, then you can make it through just about anything. And that's why I called
the book The Glass Castle, because no matter how tough times got, Dad always gave me that
hope and dream for the future. The belief that I was destined for something better than
sleeping in cars and sleeping in cardboard boxes. He gave me that vision of my future.
And if you don't get that, if a child doesn't get that from anybody, it's really hard for
them to find that light in themselves. If there's somebody, ideally it's a parent, sometimes
it's a teacher, sometimes it's a clergyman, sometimes it's a relative and sometimes it's
a neighbour. If there's one person who is a constant or even regular force in that child's
life who says, "It'll be okay, you are good and you're strong and you will amount to something,"
I believe you can make it through just about anything, I really do.
JW: And my brother he, after he retired from the police force he went into school teaching.
He said becoming a parent made him less sympathetic to Mom and Dad. He says it's not that hard
to feed your kids, but becoming a school teacher made him appreciate Mom and Dad more. He taught
in a rough area of Brooklyn. He said what some of these kids were not given by their
parents was staggering to him. We grew up reading. We grew up spending a lot of time
with them. And some of these kids, their parents told them that they didn't want them. That's
tough, that's really hard. And I don't care whether you're rich or poor, you hear that
sort of stuff, that's hard to get past.
S6: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Hello. I love The Glass Castle. Its been my favourite book since I read it.
Recommend it to everyone. They all always love it. I would just like to know what your
favourite book is.
JW: It's something I read when I was 10 years old. It was "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn".
S7: I love that book too.
JW: I was lonely and unpopular, pretty much friendless. I loved books and I thought if
this lonely friendless book loving kid can love her drunk no-count daddy and get out
of the situation that she's in, maybe I can too.
S7: Great book. Thank you.
JW: Thank you.
[pause]
[laughter]
MI: Was giving her time to get there.
[laughter]
MI: You're back? Okay.
MI: I was really talking. Oh do we have a question? Okay this will be, this will be
the final question.
[laughter]
Speaker 8: Hi Jeannette. It's actually not a question, it's a thank you. My husband,
he doesn't read. And we were in Mexico this year and I brought a book along that I had
forgotten about and it's Half Broke Horses. I had read The Glass Castle, its wonderful,
and I thought, got to get to this one. So I started reading it and I loved it, but I
had no one to share it with. So I read it out loud on the beach. Two lounge chairs and
he loved it, he just loved it. So I want to thank you for that.
JW: Well thank you.
S8: And he's waiting for me to read The Glass Castle.
[laughter]
JW: Thank you.
Speaker 9: Hi, my wife passed your book on and I very much enjoyed it. I think I'm the
minority of the demographic in the room, but I really enjoyed it. And my question comes
from my wife. And she was wondering if you were thinking of writing a parenting handbook
because she realized... And we were thinking a lot about helicopter parenting in this day
and age, and she realized what kids can endure by reading The Glass Castle and how much we're
really involved in our kids' lives and probably don't need to be. And wondering sort of your
thoughts on that and helicopter parenting. And are you gonna write us all a parenting
handbook? [laughter] Thank you.
JW: Gosh. You know, I would not write... I'm not a parent, I wouldn't dare to tell people
how to raise children. I mean, it's so much on a case-by-case basis and I do believe that
if you love them, they can get through just about anything. I do believe that if you over
protect them, they will not learn how strong they are. If you pick them up every time that
they fall, they're not going to learn how to pick themselves up. But I would never...
I would never dare to tell anybody how to raise his or her child. I will tell you that
a number of people have given their children my book and that they'll... They have these
amazing conversations about resilience, self sufficiency, poverty, what a parent is entitled
to do for a child and what a child is entitled to do for the parent. And usually afterwards,
the child hugs the mom and said, "Thank you for feeding me", you know. So, [laughter]
I'm a hero in some households. And a lot of people tell me "I thought I had the worse
mother in the world. I'm so happy to meet you."
[laughter]
JW: So I appreciate the compliment that you think I'm up to it. But whatever I have to
say about parenting I've sort of already said, in terms of, don't do this at home,
folks, [laughter] nut in terms of my own story and what you can learn from it, to do or not
to do. And my experience has that people have been really wise about pulling lessons out.
I've been in events where people get into debates about whether or not I had good parents
and at one of them... Pretty much everybody in the room thought that I'd been abused and
neglected. The person who was most veraciously defending my parents had been born and raised
on Fifth Avenue. And she said if my father one time discussed the stars with me and if
my mother had one time said don't worry what other people think of you be yourself, I wouldn't
be in therapy today. So I don't have the answers, but the fact that I have raised the questions
is more then I could have ever hoped for. So thank you.
S9: Thank you.
[applause]
MI: Thank you so much everybody for your thoughtful questions and thank you for the truth.
JW: Pleasure.
MI: It was a pleasure. Thank you, thanks everybody.