A book and a movie

A couple of days ago, I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I had bought it over a year ago when the author came to speak in Indianapolis, and the teacher of a writing class I was taking canceled class that night so we could attend. The book is a "memoir" (see my review for why I use quotes) of the author's unusual childhood growing up poor, neglected, and loved by two creative but dysfunctional parents. It is certainly a compelling read, though I had a few issues with it. The following is copied from a review I posted on amazon.com. I do not post reviews often but I felt obligated to counter the tone of "omg!!!! Best book evar111!!" that most of the reviews seemed to take.Jeannette Walls writes a compelling memoir and does an excellent job at capturing the characters of her dangerously eccentric parents. However, I have trouble with this book being billed as a memoir. It is not that I doubt Ms. Walls' honesty, but her memory. If it were truly a memoir, going only on what she personally remembered or was told from other family members, she would not be able to remember things in such detail and conversations verbatim, etc. I would prefer that the author occasionally question her own memory, or say something like, "I think the conversation went something like this..." rather than to present everything in the book as solid fact.Ms. Walls succeeds in telling the story without wallowing in self-pity or righteous anger. However, I think the book would have been stronger if she engaged in a little bit more self-examination. What did she learn from her experiences? How did they shape her views?I appreciate the fact that she did not use this book to make a political statement. There were places where she hinted at it, like when she suggests to a professor that some people may be homeless because they want to be. Nor does she suggest outright that people who are poor are there because of their own lack of initiative and anyone who wants should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as she did.Still, it is difficult to tell how much of her "roots" stuck with her. I want to believe that success for her is more than having a great career, nice things, and hobnobbing with famous people. It probably is, but again this is something she didn't really examine in the scope of this book.I have heard the author speak on the Diane Rehm Show and in person and she is a fascinating speaker as well.(I didn't post this in the amazon review, but I do have to say that calling something like this a memoir is a real pet peeve of mine. It is clearly an account of her life that has been somewhat fictionalized for the simple reason that nobody remembers things in such great detail from their distant past.)Yesterday, I went to see the movieAway from Her deals with a couple in which the wife has Alzheimer's. She makes the decision to go to a nursing home, while her husband has misgivings. While I have trouble buying the premise that a nursing home would really prohibit visits from family members for the first thirty days of a resident's stay, for the most part this is a strong story that is well-told. The narrative jumps back and forward in time quite a bit, which succeeds most of the time. Occasionally I felt unnecessarily confused. The relationships are complex, the strange twists that love takes are heartbreaking and realistic. Julie Christie is wonderful as the afflicted woman. I would definitely recommend this movie.