Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls has reported for years on the movers and shakers in the most powerful city in the world. It's a world she knows from the inside. With her husband, John Taylor, a successful novelist, they have been called a New York power couple.

Seeing a homeless person while driving through any city across the country is less than remarkable. Driving through your city on the way to a party and realizing the homeless woman rooting through the dumpster is your mother is a different story.

Jeannette Walls used to be afraid her past would be uncovered. She was afraid people would know that she grew up poor, that her father was an alcoholic, that she had to read by candlelight because her family had no electricity. She grew up to become a high-profile celebrity journalist. She couldn’t let people find out.

After writing a memoir about her difficult upbringing, Walls is ready to make things up.