Reading time: About 1 minute
A great way to improve your writing is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. I comment today on one written by Jeanette Walls.
I am in the minority when it comes to writer Jeannette Walls’ famous memoir, The Glass Castle, one of the bestselling memoirs of all time, according to her publisher. Some 2,242 readers on Amazon give the book a five-star review. Only 83 give it one star. I side with the latter group.
I didn’t like the book and I found it manipulative.
I therefore can’t explain what possessed me to pick up Well’s 2013 novel, The Silver Star, at the library this week. But I’m glad I did. Set in small town California in the 1970s the book tells the story of two sisters who travel to visit relatives in Virginia after their dysfunctional mother has disappeared on them.
Simply written and somewhat predictable, the book nevertheless has some charming aspects. I particularly enjoyed the storyline relating to a pair of emus in a nearby field. Here is a sentence that enchanted me, not so much for its writing as for the memories of childhood it evoked.
Every now and then a car passed and the driver slowed and the kids inside rolled down the windows and waved wildly at the sight of Liz and me bringing those big crazy birds back home.
Is there a child alive who hasn’t ridden in the back seat of a car and waved wildly at someone else on the road? I also enjoyed her descriptor of emus as “those big crazy birds.” It kind of sums up those birds, doesn’t it?
Spoiler alert: This was the final sentence in the book. It was perfect, I thought.
