What I Happen to Be Reading At the Moment

Carine McCandless tackels the family history that was left out of [b:Into the Wild|1845|Into the Wild|Jon Krakauer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403173986s/1845.jpg|3284484] and what she contends was the abusive household that drove her brother, Chris, out of the house and onto the road. This memoir fills in a lot of the holes that were left out out of respect to the family, but Carine no longer pulls any punches. At first it's hard to read about the kind of abuse going on, the insidious emotional kind for the children and often violent between the parents. It makes a lot of the things that happen to Chris McCandless make sense later, and the reason why this memoir is necessary is exactly the same issue of dealing with biography with surviving family members that Janet Malcolm explores in [b:The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes|147371|The Silent Woman Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes|Janet Malcolm|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320541001s/147371.jpg|3816] (I read them back to back, which was a solid but coincidental choice).

While Carine and Chris' parents have gone on the record saying that her account of their childhood environment was inaccurate, it in no way devalues what Carine presents: if one child felt this way, it offers a lot of insight into the other. (Which is not to say Carine McCandless in any way seems deceptive or emotionally manipulative or that I doubt the accuracy of her experiences).

The writing style is often clunky at times, but really the point of this book is the information and insight it holds rather than the writing.