Amy Wallace


Amy Wallace was an American writer. She was the daughter of writers Irving Wallace and Sylvia Wallace and the sister of writer and populist historian David Wallechinsky. She was co-author of the bestselling book, The Book of Lists.

Career

Wallace is best known for her books of lists, with topics that ranged from the rare, curious and unusual to crime and horror. In 1977, she lived in Berkeley on her brother's commune and during school breaks, worked with him and their father on what was to become a #1 bestseller, The Book of Lists. The book ran to three editions.
Wallace used the lists format in two other books: The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists with Handsome Dick Manitoba and The Book of Lists: Horror co-written with Del Howison and her boyfriend Scott Bradley.
She also wrote The Prodigy, a biography of William James Sidis, published in 1986, and an erotic novel, Desire.

Personal life

In 1990 she entered into a relationship with the famed and reclusive anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, which she wrote about in her memoir, Sorcerer's Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda, published in 2003. The book was the first to reveal the private life of Castaneda, and detailed his hitherto mysterious "inner circle" of women who lived with him on a closed compound.
In an interview nine months before her death, Amy Wallace said of her father that Irving Wallace was "virtually a perfect dad – a wonderful, loving man, who did a lot of the things one would expect a mother to do: when I wet the bed at three in the morning when I was little, he uncomplainingly got up and changed them; he cut out my paper dolls; when I had a nightmare he got up with me, no matter what time, to share a cup of tea and talk about it."
Of her mother Sylvia, Wallace was less complimentary, "My mother was sadistic and for the most part, awful and cruel to my brother and me. She sexually abused me, and verbally abused me constantly, and in public. My father often intervened, but was not always there to do it, and I was too confused to tell him about the sexual interference."
She was married for seven years to the musician Josef Marc. She dedicated her biography of William James Sidis titled The Prodigy to him. They divorced amicably in 1986, and he spoke at her funeral.

Death

She died of a heart condition in August 2013. She was 58.