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  $26.00
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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novelby Jeannette Walls
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Lily Casey Smith is a woman who won't take no for an answer if there's any way around it. She embarks on journeys and has experiences that only someone with iron-willed character could survive: As a child, she gets her young siblings up a cottonwood tree just before a flash flood thunders through, and keeps them clinging through the night till the waters recede; at age 15, she travels alone, on a pony, from her home in New Mexico to a teaching job in Arizona; and she moves to Chicago as a young woman without even a high school diploma. Half Broke Horses gives us Lily's life as a series of vignettes. This is old-fashioned storytelling, and reading it feels very much like sitting at a grandparent's knee. What is missing in terms of a psychological portrait of the character is made up for by the astonishing life of this spunky, independent, resourceful woman. Lily flourishes, living life on her own terms. She's a delight. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: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. Review:"For the first 10 years of her life, Lily Casey Smith, the narrator of this 'true-life novel' by her granddaughter, Walls, lived in a dirt dugout in west Texas. Walls, whose megaselling memoir, The Glass Castle, recalled her own upbringing, writes in what she recalls as Lily's plainspoken voice, whose recital provides plenty of drama and suspense as she ricochets from one challenge to another. Having been educated in fits and starts because of her parents' penury, Lily becomes a teacher at age 15 in a remote frontier town she reaches after a solo 28-day ride. Marriage to a bigamist almost saps her spirit, but later she weds a rancher with whom she shares two children and a strain of plucky resilience. (They sell bootleg liquor during Prohibition, hiding the bottles under a baby's crib.) Lily is a spirited heroine, fiercely outspoken against hypocrisy and prejudice, a rodeo rider and fearless breaker of horses, and a ruthless poker player. Assailed by flash floods, tornados and droughts, Lily never gets far from hardscrabble drudgery in several states — New Mexico, Arizona, Illinois — but hers is one of those heartwarming stories about indomitable women that will always find an audience." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"The recipes in this book are just like Grand Central Bakery: brilliant but not flashy, tasty but not self-absorbed, and full of homey charm. You will be smitten!" Tom Douglas, chef-owner of Dahlia Lounge, Lola, and Serious Pie, and author of Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen Synopsis:Walls's The Glass Castle was nothing short of spectacular (Entertainment Weekly). Now Walls presents this magnificent, true-life novel based on her no-nonsense, resourceful, hardworking, and spectacularly compelling grandmother.
VideoAbout the AuthorJeannette Walls lives in Virginia, and is married to writer John Taylor. She is a former contributor to MSNBC and has worked at several publications including Esquire, USA Today and New York Magazine. Her first book, The Glass Castle, is one of the bestselling memoirs of all time. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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