Her memoir The Glass Castle, which recounts her unconventional and turbulent upbringing, spent more than seven years on the New York Times bestseller list and was adapted into a feature film in 2017. She followed it with Half Broke Horses (2009), a "true-life novel" about her fearless grandmother Lily Casey Smith. Her debut book, Dish: The Inside Story of the World of Celebrity Gossip (2000), examined the gossip industry. Walls has also written fiction, including the novels The Silver Star (2013) and Hang the Moon (2023), further establishing herself as a versatile storyteller whose work celebrates resilience and the complexity of family bonds.
Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls (born April 21, 1960) is an American author and former journalist, best known for her bestselling memoir The Glass Castle (2005). Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Walls spent her childhood constantly moving with her eccentric parents—her brilliant but alcoholic father and her free-spirited, self-absorbed mother—before eventually settling in Welch, West Virginia, where the family endured extreme poverty. Despite these hardships, Walls escaped to New York City, graduated from Barnard College, and built a successful career in journalism, working as a gossip columnist for MSNBC and contributing to publications such as New York Magazine and Esquire.