BOOK REVIEW--HALF BROKE HORSES by Jeannette Walls

Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, January 17, 2011

Here is a wonderful little novel. Half Broke Horses is the story of Lilly Casey Smith and her family—her mother, Daisy Mae Casey; her father, Adam Casey; her sister Helen and brother Buster; her husband Big Jim Smith; their daughter Rosemarie and brother Little Jim. The two families were raised in Arizona and New Mexico in the early 1900s. They were dirt poor, but rich in heart, soul, smarts, savvy and perseverance.

Lily Casey is the central character. After having a fling at big city life in Chicago, where she was briefly married to a two-timing “crum bum” con man bigamist, Lily returns to her roots in Arizona. She meets Big Jim, and the two of them set out raising horses and cattle on a ranch near Flagstaff. The Great Depression wipes them out, but through luck and reputation, Jim is hired on to manage one of the largest ranches in Arizona, owned by investors from England. The land is high and dry, and lacks one crucial ingredient essential to making the ranch a successful operation—water. Big Jim and Lily solve that need with ingenuity, and they are off and running.

Lily learns early on that being a member of the fairer sex should be no impediment to living a full and worthwhile life. She becomes an accomplished horsewoman, a teacher, a college graduate, an aviator, as well as a gun toting mama that will put up with no nonsense from those trying to take advantage of her.

She and Jim have two children, a boy and a girl, who both love the open air, the horses, the cattle, and the ranching life. Rosemarie is an apple fallen from her mother’s tree—wild, sassy and unpredictable.

When war comes to Britain, the investors decide to sell the ranch to concentrate on war production back home. The family looses their beloved ranch before they can amass enough funds to buy a portion of it. They move to the big city, Phoenix, where they live for close to a decade in unhappiness, before returning to the wide open spaces in the northeast corner of the State.

The book is filled with adventure, tragedy, and lessons in life and living. It is simply written, but beautiful in that simplicity. Thus no wonder that is has remained on the best seller lists for close to two years.

I highly recommend it for a quick, leisurely read, akin to being on one of Lily’s horses and riding on forever through that beautiful high grazing pastureland that seems never to end.