A REAL FAMILY COMPANY, I GUESS

I am a member of a couple of book clubs. Most of the time they are pretty easy to deal with. They rarely send books I don't ask for, and it is easy to respond to the "Book of the Month" offerings. That being said, immediately before Thanksgiving, the familiest holiday of the year, I received two books I forgot to say I did not want. When this happens, I usually check the books out, on the theory that sometimes it is worthwhile to read things that you would not have read otherwise. It's called expanding your horizons, slackers.

Anyway, the two books, immediately before the familiestest day of the year were The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls and Oh The Glory of it All by Sean Wilsey. Both are memoirs of lives lead with horrific parents. They are mind numbing. The parents in both books are selfish and ego-centric to an amazing, almost unbelieveable extent. The evil stepmom in Glory has threatened to sue because of her depiction in the book. As luck would have it, Wilsey's mom has glommed right on to the book and has her own surreal web page.

There is no doubt that sending these books IMMEDIATELY before Thanksgiving was a none too subtle statement on the editors' take on the holidays...

P.S. Both books were good, but not in the Angela's-Ashes-it-all-worked-out-in-the-end way. If you are uncomfortable being entertained by the absurdity of deeply dysfunctional people emotionally abusing their own children for their own benefit, these books will make you QUITE uncomfortable.