The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity, and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family.
The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected each other, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless, even as their children prospered. The Glass Castle is truly astonishing—a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar, but loyal, family.

Author biography

Jeannette Walls was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and grew up in the southwest and West Virginia. Her books include Half Broke Horses and the memoir The Glass Castle, which has sold over three million copies in the U.S. and has been translated into twenty-two languages. Walls lives in Virginia with her husband, the writer John Taylor.