House of Happy Endings

This warm-hearted book describes the terrible strain of a father's mental illness on the entire family. This is a very talented writer who invites the reader to her childhood home, set in a picturesque New England town, and introduced us to her remarkable family.

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

Once I started this book I HAD to finish it. It is both heartbreaking and unforgettable.

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.

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.