Life has a way of knocking some of us down, but we often learn that it is up to us if we want to succeed.
Jeannette Walls touched the lives of many people when her 2005 memoir, The Glass Castle, was published. In her book, Walls provides a detailed account of her tumultuous and rocky childhood. Because of her childhood, we see a vivid account of how she was knocked down (defeated) and how she learned to succeed.
On May 2, the New York Times best-selling author will give two formal presentations in the Frederick C. Smith Auditorium in Building 12. The first presentation is at 9:30-10:30 a.m. The second presentation is at 2-3 p.m. Walls will be signing her books between 10:30-11:30 a.m. and 3-4 p.m. outside the Smith Auditorium.
With an alcoholic father and a mother who preferred painting over taking care of her children, Walls had to learn to survive. For her, survival meant rooting around in the garbage for food or eating butter for dinner because the family didn’t have enough money.But a secret unknown to most is that she didn’t want the world to know that she had to do that. But her husband inspired and motivated her to tell all the details about her unusual childhood.
“I never told anybody about rooting in the garbage for food. It was so humiliating to me. I just couldn’t imagine telling the world about that. I think I wrote that scene about 10 to 15 times because it was just cold,” she said. “But a wise man once told me that ‘secrets are kind of like vampires, they suck the life out of you but they can only exist in the darkness, once they come into the light they lose their power over you.’ I found that to be true in my case. The things that used to haunt me no longer have power over me.”
They no longer haunt her because after the success of her first novel, the world knew her secret and it was no longer a burden to her. She said she learned to confront her fears head on.
Half Broke Horses, a prequel to The Glass Castle, was released on Oct. 2009. This book provides a vivid account of the life of Walls’ grandmother, Lily Casey. The novel shows readers how Walls’ mother grew up.
Despite Walls’ difficult childhood, she said she doesn’t harbor a cynical or perpetual hatred toward her parents. Instead she thanks them because she said she wouldn’t have such an incredible story to tell. “My parents, for all their quirks, and faults and shortcomings, gave me many blessings. My father gave me the gift of dreaming and my mother gave me the gift of optimism. And they both gave me a love of education,” she said. “I believe that if you have a sense of self-esteem, a love of education, a belief in yourself that you deserve something better in life and the tools to get an education. Then you can face just about anything. I think we are all much stronger than we realize, and I just have the great blessing of knowing that I was strong because I was knocked to the ground so many times and I knew that I could get up.”
The author now lives in her Virginia home. She said she is happy with her life right now and would never regret where she came from, but said that someone couldn’t pay her a million bucks to relive her childhood.
From the scrawny kid eating garbage to survive to successful author, Walls’ story may be one of indescribable success.
“It still amazes me that I can go to a grocery store and buy anything I want, which amazes me. I will never take it for granted that I have a thermostat and that I can turn the temperature to 70 degrees and not be cold. This is a miracle to me. This is stunning. It causes me great joy every time I move the little hickey-m’jigger over,” she said. “I can be warm whenever I want.”