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Howard Garis, creator of the famed Uncle Wiggily series, along with his wife, Lilian, were phenomenally productive writers of popular children’s series—including The Bobbsey Twins and Tom Swift—from the turn of the century to the 1950s. In a large, romantic house in Amherst, Massachusetts, Leslie Garis, her two brothers, and their parents and grandparents aimed to live a life that mirrored the idyllic world the elder Garises created nonstop. But inside The Dell—where Robert Frost often sat in conversation over sherry, and stories appeared to spring from the very air—all was not right. Roger Garis’s inability to match his parents’ success in his own work as playwright, novelist, and magazine writer led to his conviction that he was a failure as father, husband, and son, and eventually deepened into mental illness characterized by raging mood swings, drug abuse, and bouts of debilitating and destructive depression. House of Happy Endings is Leslie Garis’s mesmerizing, tender, and harrowing account of coming of age in a wildly imaginative, loving, but fatally wounded family.
- Sales Rank: #2206607 in Books
- Published on: 2007-07-10
- Released on: 2007-07-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.16" h x 5.86" w x 8.56" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 352 pages
- Tan and blue hardcover, jacket with family picture. 339 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Artfully stitched like a well-made quilt, the patches of Garis's memoir encompass three generations. When she was eight years old, her grandmother Lilian, who wrote the early Bobbsey Twins, and grandfather Howard Garis, who created and virtually became Uncle Wiggily, moved into her family's home in Amherst, Mass. In this spellbinding memoir of green moments and gray ones, Garis chronicles how, in this book-reading, music-playing and, most importantly, loving family of writers, her grandmother went from being a vibrant woman to a recumbent recluse and how the years damaged her father, who seemed perfect; her beautiful mother; and her adorable brothers. You can't turn away from the truth because it's lurid and jarring, her playwright father advises. In lesser hands, the quarrels, litigation and violence that surface might control the narrative, but even as the family copes with disappointment, financial stress, nervous breakdowns, physical illness and death, Garis's capacity for conveying the family's vibrancy and vigor trumps. Garis's remarkable accomplishment in this memoir is to convey the normal, the enviable and the gothic with unsentimentalized affection, grace and painful honesty. (July)
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From Booklist
Garis' grandfather was the celebrated author of the Uncle Wiggily series; both grandparents pseudonymously authored many famous children's book series, including the Bobbsey Twins and Tom Swift. In the large family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, her father, Roger Garis, attempted to duplicate that success, but his stumbling progress as a playwright, novelist, and magazine writer spilled over into his roles as son, husband, and father. Each failure plunged him deeper into depression, characterized by rages and drug abuse. As she watched her father sink, Garis pondered what his childhood must have been like, with a severe, overbearing mother and a father who charmed other children but had little time for him. Eventually the family lost their home (where Robert Frost was a regular visitor) as they struggled to maintain middle-class respectability in the midst of Roger's spiraling mental illness. With tenderness and sharp insight, Garis looks back on her father's slow deterioration and ponders the idyllic life portrayed in her grandparents' writing against the harsh realities of their family life. Bush, Vanessa
Review
“Anybody who read Uncle Wiggily and The Bobbsey Twins thinking, ‘Why isn't my family like that?’ will count their ancestral blessings when they pick up this riveting tale, which unmasks the agonized reality behind the idyll. The prose is lucid, unornamented, but full of feeling. To enter this book is to assume the watchful air of a child who feels that it is up to her to hold together a family that is spinning apart with terrific centripetal force.” —Mary Karr, author of The Liars’ Club and Cherry
“House of Happy Endings conveys an exquisite restraint, a measured thoughtfulness that is simply eloquent. At the same time it renders the terrible pain of its people in the most urgent way. A sense of the helplessness of love in the face of an ongoing personal disintegration, the panic of articulate educated people enduring a progressive disaster, give the story a fearsome suspense that is absolutely riveting. Its balance of judicious, insightful reflection and the evocation of heartbreak is truly rare; it’s what distinguishes the best memoirs from the rest. Some exist beyond their subject as works of literature and I truly believe that this is one.” —Robert Stone
“Leslie Garis’ grandfather wrote Uncle Wiggily, her grandmother The Bobbsey Twins—between them Tom Swift and hundreds of other children’s stories. These benign characters of America’s childhood float over the Garis family like a Macy’s Thanksgiving day Parade in hell, exacting a fearful penalty on three generations. Leslie Garis has written a searing and chillingly objective memoir, House of Happy Endings, that so transcends the ‘problem family’ genre it becomes a dissection of the American family itself, its values, its mores, its dreams.” —John Guare, author of The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation
Most helpful customer reviews
59 of 61 people found the following review helpful.
A devastating, brilliant, and fearless memoir
By Dale Hrabi
Leslie Garis' account of growing up in a harrowingly fragile family of writers in the 50s and 60s is the most affecting book I've read for months. In their vast Amherst house, we meet her gallingly successful grandfather Howard Garis (of Uncle Wiggly fame), his toxic wife (The Bobbsey Twins), and their tireless failure of a son--Roger Garis (Leslie's father)--who aimed higher than his parents but withered in their shadows, spiraling down into addiction, insanity, and fecklessness.
The hero of the book, and the one for whom I shed the most tears, is Leslie's mother, who somehow kept this combustible trio functioning as long as she could on ever tighter budgets, while raising three children (Leslie and her two brothers), each with their own heartrending challenges. The story unfolds against a fascinating literary and theatrical backdrop peopled by (among others) Robert Frost, Tennessee Williams and (posthumously, hauntingly) Emily Dickinson.
Beautifully observed, compassionate, and filled with more cliffhangers than "normal life" usually delivers, The House of Happy Endings left me rather shattered and profoundly moved. I found myself staring at the photo of the family on the book's cover long after I'd finished reading, feebly trying to stroke the faces of the little boys, as if to comfort them.
In this frightening but unforgettable book, Garis exposes how thin the membrane between sanity and insanity is, how easy it can be to fall through to the other side. And how the strong survive.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Great Book
By Barbara Radigan
This was a great book written by a very talented writer. In my opinion Leslie Garis was heroic to open her life story so wonderfully and reveal the components operating in a dysfunction that affects so many families today. Back in the 50's and 60's we didn't talk about mental illness and/or the substances used to self-medicate. It was just really, really well written - a can't put-down reading. Thank you Leslie for your life story.
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
A Memoir that is Stunning and Reveals the Underbelly of the Bobbsey Twins Empire
By Kcorn
I grew up in a home filled with children's series books such as Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins and many others (not all of them series books, thank goodness). At the time, I thought author Laura Lee Hope was not just an author's name on the cover of Bobbsey Twins books but one that represented a single author, not a series of authors working for an organization. I thought of Laura as a kindly woman who sat down and thought of a new formulaic story for children, perhaps with a light shawl around her shoulders, sun streaming through the windows of her traditional home.
Wrong! Instead, a group of various authors worked for Edward Stratemeyer to create many of those children's books. Stratemeyer was a shrewd man who hired writers to work for his syndicate, allowing him to maintain control and most of the profits.
After reading the book, House of Happy Endings, written by Leslie Garis, I had a whole new perspective on the world of peaceful families, solid values and the sugar-coated world of those children's series books, ones populated with the names of Tom Swift, Baseball Joe, Dorothy Dale and the Bobbsey Twins. Our home had a fair number of these books, although I admit I found them a bit too formulaic for my tastes. Still, I have memories of those covers and the beaming faces and idyllic scenes that graced those covers.
In the books I'd read, everything generally ended well and the children and adults went off to bed to dream happy dreams -never nightmares. I do feel compelled to warn potential readers of House of Happy Endings that if you have cherished memories of those books - as well as illusions of kindly authors spinning these lovely fantasy tales - ....you might want to avoid reading the book. But if you like wonderfully told memoirs that are both powerful and enlightening, I'd suggest you get a copy of this and sit down for a good read.
Why? Because House of Happy Endings openly examines the life of one author, Leslie Garis, and her family and how their lives were seriously twisted by trying to live a life modeled on illusions of perfection like those reflected in the books. Leslie Garis's grandfather, Howard Garis, was the creator of the famed Uncle Wiggily books. He couldn't walk down the street without children clamoring for him to tell them stories about Uncle Wiggily and he'd often do just that. He was seen as a kindly gentleman who love children and eagerly looked forward to coming up with more tales to enchant them. The truth was far darker.
Imagine being the son of the man who created Uncle Wiggily. The son of "the man who created Uncle Wiggily" was Roger Garis. Try to think about how that might impact your life. Intrigued? Then you'll want to pick up the book, House of Happy Endings, because Leslie Garis reveals exactly how intimidating it was for a budding writer (her father) to try to compete with the reputation of his own father. You'd think he'd want to avoid becoming anything but a writer but his father encouraged him to continue the family tradition even as his mother undermined him.
By now it should be clear that the Garis household was definitely not one of life imitating art, of the sunny, cheerful Bobbsey Twins, but of a family struggling desperately to hold things together in the wake of impending crisis. Leslie Garis's father, Roger Garis, had terrible mood swings, drug addictions and the ill luck to be overshadowed by his famous father. She describes his struggles, mental breakdowns and odd behavior in an open, but also loving, style. I consider this book to be one of the best I've read in quite some time.
At this point, you may be cringing and wondering why on earth anyone would ever want to pick up this book, one which tears apart the illusions anyone might hold about the beloved Bobbsey Twins and Uncle Wiggily and the authors behind them.
Here's some quick reasons you should put this on your "to read" list of books:
1. It reveals a piece of American social history, especially children's literature and book history, that is both personal and engaging. There are larger truths and insights here about what people wanted to read, the ideals they cherished and the type of books they bought for themselves and their children - especially in the 30s and 40s. Author Leslie Garis had rare access to some of the letters sent by those readers as well as the demands of the publishing company.
Reading this allows one to get a "behind the scenes" looks at children's book series authors, their readers and the way the work was written and published. As a reader and a writer, I found it impossible to put down!
2. The book is written with enough drama to be completely riveting but also a certain amount of restraint. This could easily have seemed like a "Mommy or Daddy Dearest" story but the author has the good sense to pull back from that and to simply reveal what life was like at The Dell, a family home bought with much hope and promise and one that was indeed expected to be a house of happy endings. Instead, life in that large home turned into a downward spiral and a steadily worsening nightmare. Leslie Garis was witness to it all and reconstructs the entire situation with amazing clarity.
3. There is previously unrevealed information about the inside workings of the Stratemeyer syndicate. They really held dear the illusions they created, including the fact that there was one author named Laura Lee Hope who wrote The Bobbsey Twins. Even today, many unknowing readers assume that there was a single author who wrote all those books. I really enjoyed learning the truth as well as the impact that trying to keep secrets had on the Garis family. The Stratemeyers could be cruel, demanding and vengeful!
4. The book is inspirational, although not in the way that many "inspirational" book fit that genre. It is a sideways kind of inspiration, one that can be intuited by reading the author's bio and learning that she went on to write New York Times Magazine profile of many authors, including John Fowles and Joan Didion and Georges Simenon.
Before that, however, she had her own breakdown and struggles. For all readers of House of Happy Endings, one message could well be that life can be hard but resilience can be found even when all hope truly seems lost.
5. Leslie Garis doesn't pull any punches. She describes the weaknesses of her father, grandfather, mother and grandmother in graphic detail. The family was like a turbulent cloud of dysfunction and yet there were happy moments and even touching ones. From hysterical fits to money troubles, Garis gives a first person account, first seen from the eyes of a child and then as the emerging woman she was becoming. No one was left untouched, from her brothers to Garis herself. All suffered from the family dynamics.
Perhaps most touching of all is the plaintive question that opens the book but which I find to be an excellent summary of how Leslie Garis felt so much of the time, the question she seem to return to - time and again:
"We were a nice family once, weren't we? "
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