Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls is the daughter of Rose Mary (formerly Rosemary) and Rex Walls—making Half Broke Horses protagonist Lily Casey Smith her maternal grandmother. Walls asserts that Rose Mary was more concerned with her artwork than motherhood, and Rex was a charming alcoholic who proved a frequent disappointment to his children. As such, Walls and her three siblings lived a chaotic, nomadic life, frequently moving between cities and facing extreme poverty. At times, Walls had to dumpster-dive to find food. At age seventeen, Walls ran away to New York City, where she was able to finish high school and gain admission to the prestigious Barnard College. After graduating with honors, she found work as a journalist and built a successful career as a gossip columnist. Rex and Rose Mary moved to the city to be near their children and lived as squatters for a time; Walls alleges that she was once in a taxi when she saw a homeless woman digging through trash, only to realize it was her own mother. In 2005, Walls published a memoir detailing her unconventional childhood called The Glass Castle. The book proved a smash success, selling more than 2.7 million copies and being made into a movie in 2017. Wall wrote Half Broke Horses in 2009 and appears briefly at the end of the book as a baby to whom Lily takes immediate liking. Walls has reconciled with Rose Mary and lives with her in Virginia, along with Walls’ second husband.