She wore tight corsets to give her a teeny waist - I helped her lace them up - but they had the effect of causing her to faint. Mom called it the vapors and said it was a sign of her high breeding and delicate nature. I thought it was a sign that the corset made it hard to breathe.

 . 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.