Since Mom wasn't exactly the most useful person in the world, one lesson I learned at an early age was how to get things done, and this was a source of both amazement and concern for Mom, who considered my behavior unladylike but also counted on me. "I never knew a girl to have such gumption," she'd say. "But I'm not too sure it's a good thing.

 . 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.