I was in control of what people thought of me, but I had no control over what they thought of my mother. When I asked my mother, 'How do I tell people about you?' her answer was, 'Tell the truth'. But of course, the truth is never simple.

 . October 2009. Walls' family life was rootless with the family shuttling from Phoenix Arizona California (including a brief stay in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco) Battle Mountain Nevada and Welch West Virginia with periods of homelessness.

com — and author of The Glass Castle a memoir of the nomadic family life of her childhood which stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 100 weeks.