Memoir of journalist Jeannette Walls about her dysfunctional family that at times soared high--her father, when sober, would teach her and her siblings about geology, physics, and zest for life, but when drunk was destructive; and her mother, a "free spirit," hated the idea of domesticity. As a result, Jeannette and her siblings raised themselves and made their own prosperity, even as their parents became homeless.
