The Glass Castle: a memoir

by Jeannette Walls

Walls opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her childhood with two eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. She and her siblings survive an life of neglect and abuse with remarkably little bitterness. In fact, it is clear that despite her upbringing, she loves her parents and they love her.