The glass castle: a memoir

The Owl Club had a bar where groups of men with sunburned necks huddled together over beers and cigar ...

Mom didn't like cooking much. "Why spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in a ...

Beauty. Occasionally, on those nights when we were all reading together, a train would thunder by, shaking th ...

Lots of other kids lived in our neighborhood, which was known as the Tracks, and after school we all play ...

the idea of leaving them there. So I started a collection. Brian helped me with it, and together ...

Dad gave me his crooked smile. "Sounds like you've thought this through pretty well," he said. He told me ...

trouble. The flames were spreading toward the door, eating up that dry old wood in no time. I kicked ...

keep your feet / From falling asleep / Wear loud socks / They can't be beat. On our way back ...

couldn't hear what they were saying. Then she reached out a hand to Brian. I held my breath to s ...

nonpoisonous snakes, and lizards and tortoises we caught in the desert. A coyote that seemed pretty tame lived ...

"What do your lizards eat?" I asked. "We don't have any lizards, either," she said. I went home and ...

looked back at Dad, who watched me, unsmiling. I tried to push out into deeper water, but something held ...

"You're doing it, baby!" Dad shouted. "You're swimming!" I staggered out of the water and sat on the calcified r ...

scrap metal. "I'll cut the prices on my rocks," I said. Lori paused and looked down. "I don't think that ...

could use the bathroom, and if no one was in the kitchen, I'd grab something out o ...

When Mom got home that evening, she looked in the refrigerator. "What happened to the stick of margarine? ...

that went wrong. "How did this become my problem?" she shouted. "Why aren't you helping? You sp ...

desperate around the house that we didn't have anything to eat except margarine, and now that was gone, t ...

street. Some were simply curious. Moms and dads got into arguments all the time in Battle Mountain, ...

window as well. Finally, he pulled Mom back inside. She collapsed onto the floor. "He tried to kill me," ...