Jeannette Walls calls Half Broke Horses a “true-life novel” because although she based it on the life of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, she tells the story in first person (re-creating Lily’s voice) and she also imagined details to fill in the gaps of the real story.

In the author’s note at the end of the book, Walls says, “My grandmother was quite a character.” She is indeed. Her voice jumps off every page as we follow her through the adventures of her childhood, youth, and middle age in the American southwest in the first half of the twentieth century. The opening chapter tells of how Lily, 10 years old, saves herself and her siblings when they get caught in a flash flood on their family’s homestead in Texas. Lily is integral to the success of the family’s fortunes: from the age of five, she has been helping her physically disabled father to train carriage horses.

When the family moves to New Mexico, Lily is allowed to attend a Catholic boarding school, which she loves. However, after just half a year, her father fails to pay the tuition and she has to go home. She discovers that her father has used the tuition money to buy four Great Danes from Sweden. Lily is furious, but has to accept the situation. Drawing on her Catholic faith, she looks for the door that God is said to open when he closes a window, and jumps at the chance to take a test to become a teacher. She passes, and at the age of 15, rides her horse 500 miles through New Mexico into Arizona, to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. Because of World War I, teachers are in short supply.

From this point on, Lily supports herself, visiting her family only occasionally. When her first job ends with the end of the war, Lily decides to seek her fortune in Chicago. I loved tagging along on the ride of Lily’s life. Although the way is sometimes bumpy, she doesn’t let it stop her from pursuing her goals, whether learning to drive an automobile, finishing her education, taking flying lessons, or figuring out how to make ends meet during the Great Depression. As the title suggests, Lily’s life is half-way between the freedom and danger of being wild, and the safety, rules and strictures of civilization.

Lily, a born teacher, tells the stories of her life to her daughter Rosemary, in the hopes that Rosemary will learn from them. Rosemary, in turn, tells these stories to her daughter—Jeannette Walls. Although Lily died when Jeannette was only eight, her memory and stories remained in the family, and now, thanks to the sure-footed writing of Jeannette Walls, we can all benefit from spending time with the determined, energetic, resourceful, and big-hearted Lily Casey Smith.