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‘Glass Castle’ author Jeannette Walls to visit campus

Best-selling author Jeannette Walls will be on campus next week as part of the Common Reading Experience. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, tells the story of her difficult and unconventional childhood that, but for her siblings’ and her own intelligence and gumption, could well have ended tragically.

Walls will give a public lecture at 7 p.m. Oct. 24 in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom of the Bowen-Thompson Student Union, followed by a book signing.

Born in Phoenix, Ariz., Walls and her family lived in various southwestern towns before settling in Welch, W.Va. when she was 10. The children were largely neglected by their artistic but unbalanced mother and alcoholic father. Nevertheless, Jeannette graduated from Columbia University's Barnard College with honors and went on to become a reporter for New York magazine, Esquire, USA Today and MSNBC.com. Today she lives in northern Virginia and is married to writer John Taylor.

The Glass Castle has been called "a story of precision and grace [carved out of] one of the most chaotic, heartbreaking stories ever to be set down on the page." Her award-winning memoir has been a New York Times bestseller for more than six months and is being published in more than a dozen countries. Movie rights have been optioned by Paramount. The Atlanta Constitution declared: "Charles Dickens has nothing on Jeannette Walls.  . . . Dickens' scenes of poverty and hardship are no more audacious and no more provocative than those in the pages of this stunning memoir."

Her visit to Bowling Green is made possible through gifts from Ron and Sue Whitehouse and an anonymous donor. It is also sponsored by the BG Experience, BGSU Firelands and the Wood County District Public Library.