Books - The Glass Castle and Cutting for Stone

Jeanette Walls begins her book, The Glass Castle, with a desert setting. The story is from the perspective of the second child of an artist and a drunken electrician/ The first chil is a clever girl. The second child is close to the father. All four kids, but especially the first three, learn to fend for themselves in their gypsy lifestyle. The mom wants her kids to be strong and believes that what doesn't kill someone makes that person stronger. The mol has a large inheritance, but won't sell land. The kids end up caring for the parents in the backwards town Welch, WV. They move to NYC to break free.

I really enjoyed the book. I don't know why now. My mom said she didn't like it too much, but it caused a riot at her book club because people had different views on how to deal with alcoholics. I got it from a Californian guy named Kevin who visited Madagascar in a break from his semester (or was it year?) abroad in SA.



Abraham Verghesse did something pretty cool by writing Cutting for Stone. The beginning is sweet, and it continues like that for a while. But the plausibility breaks down about two thirds of the way through. You know, the book made me proud of my dad because he is doctor. Also, it really drew me into the relationship between the narrator and his twin brother. Basically, a doctor fucks a nun in Ethiopia. The doctor fucks up the delivery. Twins that were conjoined in the womb survive; the mother doesn't.  The doctor runs away to the States, becoming a renowned surgeon. The midwife at the hospital takes in the babies, marries the internal medicine doctor, and they live happily. There is a really sad story about a girl, but it gets unbelievable, like the author didn't have the guts to really describe his ideas. There is war in the country and, because of a relationship with the girl, the protagonist has to flee. He goes to America, where he meets his father and provides some nice comments on being a foreigner in the US. The book culminates in a medical challenge in which the father has a chance to redeem himself through the ingenuity of the twin.