But when he drank, he seemed to forget all these lessons, driving his family into harder and harder times. The family's move to Rex's hometown of Welch, W. Va., left them living in a state of constant poverty, in a primitive house without indoor plumbing.
Walls recalls thinking she could change her father, that she could control him and force him to change his ways. "I had to realize that I couldn't change him," she said. "I would have to build the glass castle myself. It was a hard but necessary thing to understand."
This realization came as her mother and older sister's temporary absences left her in charge of the household - and the family's funds - but Walls found herself unable to refuse her father's requests for alcohol money. "My father had such potential, but he was damaged," she said. "You can love a flawed person, but have to understand that their choices are theirs. You can't live life hoping that they change, and getting on with your own life is not betraying them."
As her father continued to drink away what little money the family made, including the children's own savings, her mother became more and more removed. An artist at heart, Rose Mary Walls shunned her money-making job as a teacher. Her c'est la vie outlook on life left the Walls children with most of the responsibilities of running a household and educating themselves. "As much as you want your parents to be God-like, they are not," Walls said. "They are who they are, and I accept my mother for who she is."
Walls and her three siblings, Laurie, Brian, and Maureen, looked out for each other and ultimately were each other's ticket out of Welch. Each one leaving high school for New York after junior year, if not sooner, the Walls children showed determination to make a life for themselves outside of their parents' shadows.
Laurie, Walls explains, is now an artist, who only read the book "at Mom's urging." Brian, with whom Walls was closest, has retired from being a police officer and now teaches English after putting himself through college. Maureen, the youngest of the children, whom Walls vowed to protect at her birth, has been put back in contact with the family since the book's publication. "She has a standing invitation to come live with me," Walls said.
Spring Break
