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.
