The House of Happy Endings - a Memoir

This book has to have been the most difficult book I've ever read.  And I don't mean because of the writing itself, or because of the fact that it is a biography of sorts.  I'm not a fan of non-fiction, and I don't normally read biographies - but since this book is directly related to children's mystery series, and it was gifted to me by a loving friend, I opened it up and delved into the story of Howard Garis, his wife Lilian Garis, and their son, Roger Garis (who wrote countless children's mysteries in the first half of the last century).  My good friend, Geoffrey S. Lapin, knows the author of this book (the daughter of Roger and granddaughter of Howard and Lilian), and he has told me over the years that life in the Garis household was not as idealistic as those homes we read about in The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Baseball Joe, and so many other children's series written by these prolific authors.  So, I went into this knowing that it was not going to be a story of roses and sunshine.  I just did not realize the extent of the difficulties faced by the Garis family in their Massachusetts home...

House of Happy Endings is a memoir about a family of writers. This story of Roger Garis and his wife, Mabel, along with their three children - Leslie (the only daughter and the author of this book), Brooks, and Buddy (later to go by the name Dalton) - starts as the family moves to Amherst, Massachusetts in the late 1940s, into a magnificent new home known as "The Dell."  From all appearances, this was to be a house of new beginnings for the family. After an attempt at publishing a magazine, and then attempts at writing television scripts, the family welcomes Roger's parents, Howard and Lilian, into the house.  And, from a narrative sense, this is where things begin to change in the book - not just in the story itself, but in the whole tone of the book.  Of course, those first chapters were written in the perspective of what a young girl of five years old saw and felt - everything was new and exciting, and Leslie Garis was caught up in the thrill of being a part of her father's world of writing.  But with the arrival of Howard and Lilian Garis, that world changes.

This book is not an easy read.  It is not the story of a "happy-go-lucky" family where everything is just wonderful and everyone is always happy.  This book tells the story of a family with serious struggles ... of a writer who battled an undiagnosed illness that affected not only his own life, but the lives of all around him. It's the story of a young girl growing up in a home where she has to navigate the confusing and conflicting relationships between her grandmother and grandfather ... between her grandmother and father ... between her grandfather and father ... between her mother and father ... and between her father and herself.  The innocence of her childhood gets slowly stripped away as she gets older, until she reaches the point where she has to distance herself from all of the drama, and she faces her own guilt and her own struggles in order to make her own way in the world.

Don't get me wrong - there are some touching stories in the book.  The memories of Howard Garis being surrounded by children, always taking time to share Uncle Wiggly stories and bring joy into these youngsters lives.  The memories of the author and her father sharing some wonderful times, and her joy at being asked to help her grandfather develop endings for his stories (something her grandmother always did for him, but after she passed, he needed someone to fill that void). The memories of hiding in the dumbwaiter, spying on the family, playing "detective" in her own private place.  Despite all of the dysfunctional drama, the author still has some good memories of growing up.  I even enjoyed reading the numerous references the various children's series books authored by Howard, Lilian, and Roger.  There is also some very frank revelations about what it was like to work with and for the Stratemeyers back then.  But it's heartbreaking to read just how much those memories are overshadowed by the addictions and illnesses that seemed to take control of her father over the years.

And don't get me started on that grandmother.  The more the author describes her, the more I could see my own grandmother reflected in this woman.  Perhaps it was simply the way women of that era were brought up, or maybe it was simply bitterness developed over the years (as suggested by the author, her own grandmother may have been jealous of the fact her husband's writers were far more successful than her own), or maybe it was just a pure coincidence that both the author's grandmother and my own were so very critical of their own children, basically taking away any self-confidence they might have had and destroying any ambitions or successes they had.  I know the torture my own mother went through with the way her mother treated her, so it really hit home when I read how Lilian Garis treated her own son.  This made the ending of this book so much more harder for me to read and, quite honestly, caused me to break down in tears thinking of my own mother and her passing (thankfully, though, she had family at her side, unlike poor Roger Garis...).

I would definitely say this book is worth reading, but be warned - it's not for the faint of heart!

RATING:  9 unfinished plays out of 10 for revealing the not-so-happy side of a family of children's series authors and opening up about what it was like growing up in the Garis family.