This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents. At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane, middle class existence' she had always craved. In her apartment, overlooked by 'a portrait of someone else's ancestor' she recounts poignant remembered images of star watching with her father, juxtaposed with recollections of irregular meals, accidents and police-car chases and reveals her complex feelings of shame, guilt, pity and pride toward her parents.

珍妮特·沃尔斯（Jeannette Walls），美国著名记者。撰有《闲聊：流言世界的内幕》、《闲聊：流言如何变成新闻，新闻怎样成为另一场秀》等书。2005年出版回忆录《玻璃城堡》，首次公开自己鲜为人知、与众不同的家庭背景和成长经历，凭借此书蜚声文坛。

现与丈夫约翰·泰勒（John Taylor）长住纽约城和长岛。