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.