A Keeper

I just devoured this book in less than a day. Jeanette Walls wrote this novel based on the family stories of her grandmother Lily Casey Smith.

Ms. Walls says she has to call it a novel because she wanted to tell the story in the first person. According to the author, "Lily Casey Smith was a very real woman, and to say that I created her or the events of her life is giving me more credit than I'm due. However, since I don't have the words from Lily herself, and since I have also drawn on my imagination to fill in details that are hazy or missing-and I've changed a few names to protect people's privacy- the only honest thing to do is call the book a novel."

To me Lily Casey Smith joins my heroine, Marjorie Kinnon Rawlings as the kind of woman I wish I was. She was assertive, smart, gutsy, adventurous, resourceful, had the courage of her convictions, had vision, lived outside the expected parameters of her day, and savored or survived the moment while taking control of her own future. I know there were and are many more women like her out there & I wish more people wrote their stories for me to savor.

In the meantime, this book joins my copy of Cross Creek to be read over and over again. The major difference between the two books is that Cross Creek is a memoir, and because of that more personal and introspective, where Half Broke Horses is a whirlwind of adventure. I kept thinking what a great movie it would make, but there's just too much good stuff to fit into a 90 minute film.

Read it instead. Family photos help give the book a visual a movie might distort. My grandaughters can count on getting their own copies of this book from me. They may not agree with Lily on every issue, but this was a woman to learn from and admire and in many ways aspire to. Definitely a keeper.