Presents a novel based on the life of the author's grandmother,
Lily Casey Smith, who learned to break horses in childhood,
journeyed five hundred miles as a teen to become a teacher, and ran
a vast ranch in Arizona with her husband while raising two
children.
Jeannette Walls's
The Glass Castle was "nothing short of spectacular" (
Entertainment Weekly). Now she brings us the story of her
grandmother -- told in a voice so authentic and compelling that the
book is destined to become an instant classic.
"
Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So
begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, in Jeannette Walls's
magnificent, true-life novel based on her no-nonsense, resourceful,
hard working, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six,
Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home
to teach in a frontier town -- riding five hundred miles on her
pony, all alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car ("I
loved cars even more than I loved horses. They didn't need to be
fed if they weren't working, and they didn't leave big piles of
manure all over the place") and fly a plane, and, with her husband,
ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom
is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls,
unforgettably portrayed in
The Glass Castle.
Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression,
and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at
prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and
anyone else who didn't fit the mold.
Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as
riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's
Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's
West with the Night. It will transfix readers
everywhere.
