The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

Author:Jeannette Walls
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Autobiography
ISBN: 9780743247535
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2005-03-01T08:00:00+00:00

Lori gave me a hug when she heard I’d told off Erma. Mom was upset, though. “We may not agree with all of Erma’s views,” she said, “but we have to remember that as long as we’re her guests, we have to be polite.”

That didn’t seem like Mom. She and Dad happily railed against anyone they disliked or disrespected: Standard Oil executives, J. Edgar Hoover, and especially snobs and racists. They’d always encouraged us to be outspoken about our opinions. Now we were supposed to bite our tongues. But she was right; Erma would boot us. Situations like these, I realized, were what turned people into hypocrites.

“I hate Erma,” I told Mom.

“You have to show compassion for her,” Mom said. Erma’s parents had died when she was young, Mom explained, and she had been shipped off to one relative after another who had treated her like a servant. Scrubbing clothes on a washboard until her knuckles bled—that was the preeminent memory of Erma’s childhood. The best thing Grandpa did for her when they got married was buy her an electric washing machine, but whatever joy it had once given her was long gone.

“Erma can’t let go of her misery,” Mom said. “It’s all she knows.” She added that you should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. “Everyone has something good about them,” she said. “You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. “How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality?”

“Hitler loved dogs,” Mom said without hesitation.

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