Hang the Moon

by Jeannette Walls

Then there are those rare few with both, like Tom, and they have enough people smarts to know better than to show off their book smarts.

“Monarch butterfly” leads to “Mexico” leads to “Aztec” leads to “Cortes” leads to “Spanish Inquisition” leads to “black plague” leads to “fleas” leads to “wings” leads back to “butterfly”—and

Any little girl whose mama disappears will always have a hole in her heart that nothing will ever completely fill.

“When you can’t solve a problem and you can’t run from it and you can’t hide from it, you got to make it the other man’s problem.”

Sometimes the so-called law is nothing but the haves telling the have-nots to stay in their place.

the things this family keeps quiet about are the things that matter the most.

But a lot has changed. And maybe when we lose something, that’s our chance to replace it with something better.

There are two kinds of family, those you’re born into and those you put together from pieces that don’t go anywhere else, and this is one of those families. Five of us now. Like mismatched buttons that still keep your shirt closed.

Lots of folks don’t deserve what they get. Eddie, for one. Abraham Crockett. And lots of folks don’t get what they deserve. Will Gus?

SOME SAY THAT WHAT doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but that isn’t always so. Many a time, what doesn’t kill you leaves you broken and crippled, unable to fight the next fight, or sometimes it leaves a wound in your heart so deep and ugly that it never truly heals, leaves you bitter and angry, unable to forgive the world for its cruelty.