Walls, who spent years trying to hide her childhood experiences, allows the story to spill out in this recollection of growing up. From her current perspective as a contributor to MSNBC online, she remembers the poverty, hunger, jokes, and bullying she and her siblings endured, and she looks back at her parents: her flighty, self-indulgent mother, a Pollyanna unwilling to assume the responsibilities of parenting, and her father, troubled, brilliant...

Chronicling the adventures of an eccentric, resilient and tight-knit family. A remarkable story of unconditional love. A young woman who, influenced by the joyfully wild nature of her deeply dysfunctional father, found the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.