Tag Archives: Jeannette Walls

WKTV show features interview with “The Glass Castle” author

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Author Jeanette Walls (2009)

“The Kamla Show: The Glass Castle” will be airing on WKTV 25 on Monday, Aug. 21 at 5:30 p.m.; Wednesday, Aug. 23  at 11:30 a.m. and Friday, Aug. 25 at noon and 7:30 p.m.

 

In this episode, Kamla sits down with journalist and author Jeannette Walls to talk about her memoir The Glass Castle that is now a Hollywood film. The film stars Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, Naomi Watts and others. The film was released on Aug. 11.

 

Walls grew up poor and lived in a home with no running water or electricity. She left home at 17 for Manhattan, where she completed her high school education and started working for a local newspaper in Brooklyn. Walls then went on get her undergraduate degree from Barnard College and became a journalist. She worked as a gossip columnist for MSNBC. While covering stories about celebrities, Walls realized that she had never shared her story of a gritty and nomadic childhood, where her family lived in cars, abandoned buildings and foraged for food . The irony did not escape Walls that she now lived in a nice apartment, while her homeless parents lived in an abandoned building and foraged for food. The dissonance did not escape her and that prompted her to write her memoir that became a best-seller.

 

If you are interested in learning more about Walls’ writing, check out a review by the Grand Rapids Public Library on her book “Half Broke Horses,” by clicking here.

On the shelf: ‘Half Broke Horses’ by Jeannette Walls

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By Elaine Bosch, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main

 

Jeannette Walls, best-selling author of the compelling memoir, The Glass Castle, follows up with a “true life” novel — Half Broke Horses. Going back another generation in her family tree, Walls expounds, with insight and energy, on the life of her grandmother Lily.

The spirit of the family so memorably captured in The Glass Castle has its roots in Lily. Raised on hardscrabble horse ranches in Texas and Arizona at the turn of the 20th century, tough, outspoken Lily does not want an ordinary life as a wife and mother. She wants education, freedom and independence. She begins breaking horses at age 6. At 15, she rides 500 miles alone on horseback through the desert to take her first job. She furthers her search for education and excitement by moving to Chicago in her early twenties. Eventually, heartbreak and family obligations send her back to her roots in the west.

This wonderful book reads like a historical adventure. The people, places, and events of the times are well researched and accurate in spirit. The characters are colorful and the narrative is rollicking. Lily faces life’s tribulations and tragedies with style and determination. She builds a legacy, both philosophical and financial, that will sustain her family long after she has gone.

While Half Broke Horses stands on its own merits, it will be best appreciated if read in tandem with The Glass Castle. If you are already a fan of the memoir, you will be captivated by the prequel.