Thursday, December 22, 2011
Book Talk: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
I'm happy to present Clover Cohen, a long time student in the Master Class. Cloie is one to watch! Enjoy her insights on memoir. She's a hard working writer who is paying her dues.
Extreme poverty sears itself in to one’s senses. The damp cold bites the nose and cheeks when there is no heat in January. A mouse’s scuttling in the dark perks the ears. Salty Rice-a-Roni from the donated food box burns the tongue. Smoke seeping out from the car’s hood alerts to another impending break down and a long walk home.
When I first read The Glass Castle in 2005, I had not started writing yet. I didn’t understand how a writer tells her story and the devices she uses. After years of reading and both receiving and offering feedback, I want to suggest to Jeannette that she slow down. Set the scene. Use sensory details even more to make the story come alive. We want to be there with you. 
In Jeanette’s story of her crazy, neglectful parents and their transient life, we see the places where they settle then abandon in the middle of the night. We hear their conversation in dialogue that’s fantastic. We understand the characters and their complexities. The sense underrepresented in this story is smell. This sounds weird, even to me, but I want to smell this story.
I want to know:
What burning flesh smells like (even though I’m sure it’s beyond disgusting), “I smelled the burning and heard a horrible cracking as fire singed my hair and eyelashes.”
How the chemicals at the dump in Phoenix burned their nostrils as they unscrewed the lids and tried to set them on fire, “So we mixed up a batch of what Brian called nuclear fuel, pouring different liquids into a can. When I tossed in the match, a cone of flame shot up with a whoosh like a jet afterburner.”
About the stench of the inside of a dumpster, “When no one was looking, Brian and I pushed open the lid, climbed up, and dived inside to search for bottles. I was afraid if might be full of yucky garbage. Instead we found an astonishing treasure: cardboard boxes filled with loose chocolates.”
How an open pit of rotting garbage smells, “He explained that we was going to hire a truck to card the garbage to the dump all at once. But he never got around to that, either, and as Brian and I watched, the hole for the Glass Castle’s foundation slowly filled with garbage.”
How the stink of a molded out cabin in West Virginia must overwhelm, “Everything in the house was damp. A fine green mold spread over the books and papers and paintings that were stacked so high and piled so deep you could hardly cross the room. Tiny mushrooms sprouted up in the corners.”
About the breath of a drunk man as he tried to force himself on her, “His hands dropped down. He squeezed my bottom, pushed me on to the bed, and began kissing me.”
About the absence of smell, or perhaps the pleasant scent, of a nice apartment in New York City, “Eric’s apartment had cross beamed ceilings and a fireplace with an art deco mantel. I actually lived on Park Avenue, I kept telling myself as I hung my clothes in the closet Erick had cleared out for me."
How a person reeks of body odor when they live on the streets for years, “Mom broke into a huge smile and started hurrying toward us. Instead of an overcoat, she was wearing what looked to be about four sweaters and a shawl, a pair of corduroy trousers, and some old sneakers.”
It’s easy to be on the other side of the page and make these requests. I have become greedy as a reader. Yet as a writer, it’s a laborious challenge, to say the least, to infuse every scene with every sense. We live in our heads and our memories are dominated by what was seen.
Our auditory and olfactory memories are accessible though.
Like when I pass by the make-up counter at Macy’s, a whiff of Estee Lauder’s Youth Dew drops me back in the middle of Grandma’s bathroom, in my 6 year old body, as I snoop through her make up and spritz the brown bottle of perfume on the inside of my wrist, them rub it together with the other.
As I click through the radio stations on my drive to work, “Today” by the Smashing Pumpkins transports me back 16 years to my wedding day, to the moment when our vows were sealed and we turned to walk back down the aisle, when tears seeped from my Mom’s eyes and I had to pause for a millisecond to catch my breath.
Music can be easily accessed through YouTube or iTunes. Images are easy too when Google can verify a memory in seconds. Taste, touch, and smell have to be sought out though, away from the quiet house, with sleeping kids, where the only sounds comes from the whirring dishwasher and the sharp clicks on the laptop’s keyboard. These going-outs have to be part of the process to inform the writing, to offer another layer for the reader. I have no doubt Jeanette remembers the stench of her youth or at is reminded when she passes a restaurant’s dumpster. She may have even tried to wipe them out by surrounding herself with sweet cut roses and perfumed candles. But as her reader, I want those memories. As a writer, I am reminded again that I need to work harder to seek out my own.
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