Jeannette Walls tells the story about her childhood. She talks about living like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Retreating to the dismal West Virginia mining town--and the family-- her father, Rex Walls, had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves,...

In this raw testimony of a heart-breaking, hardscrabble childhood, Doug Wallace paints an unforgettable portrait of a child determined to free himself from the cycle of poverty that strangled his family for generations.