Start Reading House Of Happy Endings Outlined By Leslie Garis Available In Readable Copy

dad used to read me Howard Garis' Uncle Wiggily stories every night truly some of my happiest childhood memories, When I came across this book I bought it wanting to learn more about Howard Garis, Could not believe how dysfunctional this family was! Told by Garis' granddaughter it chronicles the fuzzy old age of Garis, his exacting and cold wife and the eccentricities and downward spiral of her father.
Were it not for the pluck of her mother I would have slit my wrists, The "happy endings" apply only to the fictional works of Garis, Incredibly sad but I couldn't stop reading, always hoping for a happy ending, A tedious read that I probably will not finish, . . pages of medical notes on her father's stay in a mental institution that add very little to the story, It would have been so much more interesting to hear more about how her poor mother put up with such a damaged husband.
I think the author thinks her father is much more interesting then the average reader will,
COULD NOT FINISH! As a lifetime member of the Uncle Wiggly Fan Club, I jumped on this book when i heard about it.
And what a book! The Bunny Rabbit Gentleman's
dark underbelly is fully exposed here, and it makes compelling reading, Leslie Garis, granddaughter of Howard amp Lilian, the powerhouse writers of the Stratemeyer syndicate, gives us a downtherabbithole look at the family from which Uncle Wiggly came.
A classic fifties family on the surface, and, . . a classic disfunctional fifties family underneath, Grampy repeatedly being dragged home from the local bars, Grandma terrorizing everyone in the house, Daddy addicted to pills. Mom having crippling dizzy spells, Kids being kicked out of multiple schools, And little Leslie, spying on all this from the dumbwaiter, I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to write this book as well as she manages to do, But then she comes from a family of writers! This was a really well written and interesting memoir about the author's experiences growing up in a literary family her grandparents wrote some famous children's books, including Uncle Wiggly and the Bobbsey Twins series.
It also chronicles her father's struggle with mental illness and drug addiction and the effect this had on the family, I liked this book very muchbeautifully written, lovingly recollected, a sadly dysfunctional family observed with compassion and understanding,

The book offers a remarkable look at the complex and often destructive relationships within a family that depended upon the royalty income earned from the grandparents syndicate mass market books, while at the same time the parents and children including Garis herself were embarrassed by the books, which the family seemed, at least in Leslie's retelling, to think of as a little silly, even vulgar.
Roger Garis, Leslies father, raised his literary sights much higher culturally speaking than his fathers Uncle Wiggly or his mothers Bobbsey Twins.
A serious, sensitive playwright with mental health issues, he was distraught when his work was rejected by the New York critics and snobby East Coast literati.


I particularly liked the early part of the book, which is skillfully told through the perception and the confusions of a child.
But not all the chapters are of the same quality, I felt that the lengthy reports of her father's illness could have been compressed or told narratively, rather than through long quotations of medical documents.
For the most part, though, this is a strong and compelling story,
Like many readers, I came to this memoir of Leslie Garis growing up with a famous grandfather Howard Garis, author of the Uncle Wiggily stories and countless other popular works of juvenile fiction in the first half of theth century because of Howard Garis' fame.
And it is his reputation for happy endings to his stories that gives this book its title, although growing up in the house in Amherst, Massachusetts with her grandparents, mother, brothers and troubled father Roger Garis was anything but happy.
Much of the book centers around Roger's attempts to find success in his own writing career, and his struggles with mental illness and addiction.
Leslie Garis writes honestly about her father, who she associates closely with, and how she had to overcome a difficult childhood and family history of depression and addiction to become a writer, wife and mother.


Please note that I don't use the star rating system, so this review should not be viewed as a zero.
I very much enjoyed this memoir written by the grand daughter of the famous "Uncle Wiggly", It seems that I have been reading many books lately with a mental illness theme I think because I am intrigued with the fine line that seperates the mentally ill and certifiable madness.
This book did not disappoint for me, All slow at times, well worth the read I love how this book is written, The author, granddaughter to the creator of 'Uncle Wiggily" and contributor to 'The Bobbsey Twins' series, shares the most beautiful memories of her childhood.
Of course, as the story progresses there are more unhappy memories than happy ones, With great brilliance often comes great sorrow and torment, This is true with the Garis family,

Both Grandmother and Grandfather have been successful authors for most of their lives, Their son, the author's father, has published, but he is never able to reach the level of success of his parents, I can identify with the author as she observes the members of her family, She needs to know them and to understand their motives, frailties, and destructive pasts, I understand that need to find the truth in our families, and the desire to know what makes those closest to us 'tick'.


The father's downward spiral into mental illness is painful to watch, The author handles all of this

beautifully, In her quest to understand the havoc around her, she manages to relate the story with a kind and gentle writing style.
She and her brothers bear many scars from their parents' inability to provide a healthy home for them, It's a unique look into just how debilitating and destructive mental illness is within an otherwise loving family,

Initially, the appeal for me was to read about the family responsible for making me happy and keeping me company as I discovered the world of books as a child.
It was a real treat to discover that the family lived in places with which I am familiar, They had a home at one point in Cheshire, Ct, The author's mom's family resided in Naugatuck, Ct, The family also has stints in Saybrook and Lyme, both in Connecticut! And Amherst, Ma, holds a special place in my heart, as does the Atkins farm where her mom picked apples to freeze! So, not only was I able to lose myself in the true story of the Garis family, but I easily pictured the locations mentioned throughout the book.
Thank you to Leslie Garis for this honest sharing of the most personal subject imaginable her talented, lessthanperfect family, This is the brutally honest memoir of the Garis family, the Stratemeyer Syndicate's most prolific ghost writers under their house names, The Garis family members also wrote numerous books under their own names,

This book was written by Leslie Garis, granddaughter of Howard Garis wellknown for his Uncle Wiggily stories, his wife Lilian, and son Roger, who was Leslie's father.


One would think that such happy stories came from happy writers, That is certainly not so, Howard Garis seems like he was fine and he was beloved by his family, However, there are hints that Lilian Garis was addicted to opiates from a gallbladder illness inuntil her death in, Her granddaughter Leslie found her cold and aloof and very critical of her family, Poor Roger tried all his life to live up to his famous parents, However, Lilian repeatedly told him he would fail, Roger ended up also addicted to barbiturates and spent his later years in and out of mental institutions, Leslie speaks of her father with affection from the time they lived in a large house in Amherst, Massachusetts called The Dell inthrough thes.
The elder Garis couple also had a daughter, Cleo, who wrote a three book series too, Cleo isn't mentioned much in this book, It's said that she emotionally distanced herself from her mother in her teen years, As for Roger's descendants, they all had their problems, Leslie suffered from depression. Her two brothers, Brooks and Buddy Howard suffered from severe dyslexia and failed out of several schools, Leslie's children did not escape the family legacy: her two sons also had dyslexia and her daughter suffered form depression at a young age.
However, in these recent times, dyslexia and depression are treatable,

I found it interesting that the Stratemeyers paid Howard and Lilian and all their ghost writers a flat fee ofper each written book.
There were no royalties and they were bound by silence as to their writing, Howard was good friends with Edward Stratemeyer Roger admired the man but couldn't help but feel resentment at the way his family was treated.
The Garis family spiraled down to money problems after Howard had to support the whole family,

Lilian is credited with writingbooks, Howard is credited with writing overbooks and over,Uncle Wiggily stories a story appeared in the newspaper six days a week for almost four decades.
Roger wrote a series of four books called The Outdoor Boys, but he is mostly known for his work writing for magazines, plays, and a memoir called "My Father was Uncle Wiggily".
My brother and I loved the Uncle Wiggily stories when we were young, And I read all the Hardy Boys books and am very familiar with the behindthescenes story of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, This book is written by Leslie Garis, the granddaughter of Howard Garis, creator of Uncle Wiggily and, with his wife Lillian, author of dozens of Stratemeyer series books, including Tom Swift and the Bobbsey Twins.
Initially it seems like the story of life growing up with Howard and Lillian in a beautiful home in Amherst, Mass, Childhood recollections of Grampy entertaining the town children while his son, the author's father, Roger Garis, pursues his own career as a writer.


But there are signs that all is not the Rockwellian scene one might expect, Granny, Lillian, rarely leaves her room, and when she does, she's unpleasant to be around, And Roger's plays aren't as successful as he'd hoped or expected, As Leslie moves through her teenage years, she begins to notice changes in her father, especially after Lillian dies, His mental condition declines, with profound effects on the family, The second half of the book tells the story of Roger's repeated breakdowns, If it's not clear, the House of Happy Endings's title is ironic,

Leslie Garis is a respected writer, known for her profiles of artistic personalities for publications including the New York Times and the Washington Post.
She does an excellent job telling her family's tale, She connects her father's mental health issues to several sources, from his own pathology to drug addiction to, significantly, his relationship with both his own mother and father.
She paints a wellrounded picture in which all of the players, while sometimes making poor choices and taking questionable actions, are ultimately sympathetic characters.
The family was caught up in circumstances to which they didn't know how to respond, Sometimes they did the right thing, often they didn't, despite good intentions,

This book affected me deeply, There were several times, as it wound down, that I had to stop reading for a moment to recover my emotions, For example, there's a scene in which Roger falls out of bed in the middle of the night and begins moaning, His wife and son both hear him, but are so accustomed to his nighttime struggles that they ignore it, This time, he's managed to break two ribs and doesn't get help until hours later when they finally check on him, But there is one passage at the very end that I'll hide because it's a spoiler, It is speculative, but evokes the moment so well and with such pathos that it reached in and gripped my heart, It is when Leslie imagines her father's frame of mind before he downs his bottle of pills.
She writes, "On that same day, Dad awoke in his room in Norwalk, Had he worked on his book the day before Had he considered writing someone a letter and decided against it By the morning, he must have thought that his words were all used up, that there would be no more.
" The image of Roger finally realizing that he would never achieve his dreams or live up to his late mother's lofty expectations is crushing.


Perhaps this book reached me as it did because of my own personal circumstances, It might not affect other readers the same way, But I highly recommend it as a gripping insight into human frailty and strength, .