I finally got around to reading Jeanette Wall’s Half Broke Horses. It is what she calls a true-life novel. It is the story of her grandmother, Lily Casey, and as such, it is a sort of prequel to her memoir The Glass Castle.

First, I will say that it is a wonderful book. Walls is a great writer, and with subjects as compelling as her grandmother, it makes telling a good story a lot easier. Her grandmother was a very strong, independent woman who grew up poor on ranches in Texas and New Mexico and Arizona. With a long stuggle to finally get an education, she became a teacher, but in the meantime she broke horses, drove cars, learned to fly a plane and even sold liquor during prohibition just to get by.

Even though it is such a great story, it is no Glass Castle. That memoir took me on such a wild ride I hardly knew if I should believe everything I was reading. Wall’s grandmother’s life seems no less interesting than her own or her mothers, yet it is told in a much drier and sometimes passionless voice that left me wanting just a little bit more. I would have loved to meet the real Lily Casey.

Half Broke Horses is definately a book worth reading, and if you haven’t already read it, then get yourself a copy of The Glass Castle as well.