Half Broke Horses is told by her grandmother, in her own voice. This woman was born in 1901 in Salt Draw, Texas. Her parents had a ranch called the KC. Her father raised carriage horses and he carried a grudge against life. Lily Casey Smith was too busy and too bossy to carry a grudge. She was getting on with life, as hard as she could go. Lily was one of those people who knew what was best for herself and for everyone around her, and heaven help you if you disagreed with her.

She became a teacher, starting at age 15. She taught, and tried to get a degree, and taught some more, without a degree, and eventually got the certification. She moved to Chicago and married a scoundrel who was already married but had somehow neglected to mention it. Lily decided to get some money from selling her engagement ring, and not just throw it in Lake Michigan. “But the jeweler looked at the diamond with his eyepiece and said, ‘It’s fake.’ So I threw it in the lake after all.”

On she went, back to teach in Red Lake, Arizona. She went to pick up her first month’s paycheck and two jokers told her she must pass a simple test first. “Ride that little fella out in the corral.” Lily knew a half broke horse when she saw it, but she had been riding half broke horses all her life, so she did—ride the nasty mustang and make him sorry he’d ever been born. She made the men sorry, too.

Eventually she impressed a nice man, by being bucked off a horse during a race, and getting right back on. She sort of proposed marriage, and Jim Smith jumped at the chance. One of the children they had was Rosemary, who is the mother of Jeannette Walls, the author. When Rosemary married Rex, Lily didn’t approve of him. They were leaving on their honeymoon.

“Jim put his arm around me and we watched them take off up the street, heading out into open country like a couple of half broke horses.” And that sums up the book. A lot of people are Half Broke Horses.