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Half Broke Horsesby Jeannette Walls |
Patti's Pages: This novel is based on the life of the author's grandmother
but lacks the shock value of her memoir, The Glass Castle, and I think that's a good thing. After a
scrappy childhood in Texas, 15-year-old Lily Casey heads off alone on a month-long trek on her horse Patches
to Arizona for a teaching job. Her teaching gigs end when teaching opportunities are offered to returning
WWI vets. Lily's next stop is Chicago, where she receives more than the formal education she was seeking.
A friend's accidental death and Lily's brief marriage to a bigamist are innocence-blasting events that will
shape her adulthood. And Chicago is not the last place that she leaves because the memories are too painful.
This book, though, is not a tragedy. It's the story of an indomitable woman making her own way and then
raising a family in the Wild West. She wins at poker and horseback contests and wins our hearts
as we root for her at every juncture, even as she starts selling bootleg liquor to supplement
her family's dwindling resources, hiding the goods from the revenuers under her baby's crib.
Since this is not strictly a biography, and the protagonist died while the author was a child,
it's impossible to know which parts of this book are fiction, but I have to believe that the main
events really happened. It's a ride worth taking, especially if you've read The Glass Castle.
This book provides some insight into the background of the author's mother, Rosemary Smith
Walls, who is a difficult child, with a warped sense of livestock welfare.
Rating: ****
Lynn Aldis: This is Jeannette's second book, the 1st being her memoir
The Glass Castle. Half Broke Horses is her grandmother's story, as she puts it a "true life novel". She
initially set out to write about her mother, but while interviewing her she realized she had a good story
in Lily Casey Smith. Set in the early 1900's you really get a feel for what life was like in the west.
Jeanette has a way of really making you feel compassion towards her characters. I really enjoyed reading
this, but it wasn't one of my favorites. It was a good quick read and I would recommend it. Jeanette
has a way of really making you feel compassion towards her characters.
Rating: *****
Barbara Crout:
This book is a biography
of the author's grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, born in 1901 on the
salt flats of west Texas. At age 6,she was caught in a flash-flood,
rescuing her little brother and sister, spending the night holding
them in a tree; at age 7, she contracted "yellow jack fever" that nearly
killed her - and then, things started going bad! At age 11, she was
breaking horses with her father, mucking out stalls and digging outhouses.
This is a story of a tenacious and proud woman from a family that lived by "horse wisdom
and horse sense". After years of struggle and many dreadful jobs,
she put herself through college, married a loving man, raised a
family including a daughter who was a head-strong as she and spent many
years as a teacher in one-room schools in the middle of Nowhere, Arizona and
surrounding territories. This book is pure inspiration!
Rating: *****
