
Half Broke Horses
A True-Life Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jeannette Walls
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By:
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Jeannette Walls
About this listen
2010 Audie Award Finalist for Narration by the Author
Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle was "nothing short of spectacular" ( Entertainment Weekly). Now, in Half Broke Horses, she brings us the story of her grandmother, told in a first-person voice that is authentic, irresistible, and triumphant.
"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls's no nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At 15, she left home to teach in a frontier town - riding 500 miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car ("I loved cars even more than I loved horses. They didn't need to be fed if they weren't working, and they didn't leave big piles of manure all over the place") and fly a plane. And, with her husband Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette's memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.
Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn't fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit.
Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Beryl Markham's West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix audiences everywhere.
©2009 Jeanette Walls (P)2009 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
Based on the true story of the life of Jeanette Walls’ grandmother, Half-broke Horses is the endearing tale of Lily Casey Smith, a woman born into poverty in the early 1900s frontier of west Texas. Intelligent, despite her spotted 8th grade education, Smith knows her purpose on earth is more than just breaking-in horses on her daddy’s farm and she sets off across the desert at age 15 to teach children in Arizona. Smith is scrappy and independent, clearly a woman before her time. In her early 20s when she learns that the traveling salesman she married actually already has a wife and kids, she puts her six-shooter revolver with the pearl handle in her purse and hits him with it, giving him a good “pistol-whippin’”.
Walls, the best-selling author of her own memoir The Glass Castle, tells her grandmother’s story in a matter-of-fact, no-nonsense way probably much in same way as her grandmother shared these stories with her. It can be shocking that Smith speaks of her best friend’s death in the same tone as she does of, say, playing a hand of poker, but it’s realistic a snapshot of the era. In her narration, Walls’ accent is a bit mottled a little southern, with hints of other dialects thrown in which can be distracting at times, but it also suits Smith, a girl from west Texas who had an Irish father with a speech impediment.
Smith does find true happiness with her second husband and eventually settles down (if you can call selling whiskey during Prohibition by hiding it under her baby’s crib “settling down”). But this heroine’s adventures racing horses, surviving flash floods and tornadoes, and playing poker will stick with you long after Walls has finished describing them. Colleen Oakley
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- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea's family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in the Canadian wilderness. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren't trying to build a new society - they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea's grandfather Dick, they lived a pot-smoking, free-loving, clothing-optional life under a canvas tipi without running water, electricity, or heat for the bitter winters.
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Entertaining but Frustrating
- By Nikki on 09-01-21
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The Sound of Gravel
- A Memoir
- By: Ruth Wariner
- Narrated by: Ruth Wariner
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.
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Unputdownable
- By Lesley A. on 01-16-16
By: Ruth Wariner
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Out of the Darkness
- The Story of Mary Ellen Wilson
- By: Eric A. Shelman
- Narrated by: Deb Thomas
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In New York City, in April of 1874, a most unusual event took place. A severely abused nine-year-old girl named Mary Ellen Wilson became the first child in America to be rescued from an abusive home. She had been beaten, burned, slashed with scissors, locked in a closet, and had never been outside of her tenement home in over 7 years. Thanks to the concern and dedication of a missionary named Etta Wheeler, the child was finally saved from her cruel captors.
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Harrowing Story
- By musa on 03-21-17
By: Eric A. Shelman
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Running on Red Dog Road
- And Other Perils of an Appalachian Childhood
- By: Drema Hall Berkheimer
- Narrated by: Bailey Carr
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Gypsies, faith-healers, moonshiners, and snake handlers weave through Drema's childhood in 1940s Appalachia after her father is killed in the coal mines, her mother goes off to work as a Rosie the Riveter, and she is left in the care of devout Pentecostal grandparents. What follows is a spitfire of a memoir that feels like a novel with intrigue, sweeping emotion, and indisputable charm. Drema's coming of age is colored by tent revivals with Grandpa, poetry-writing hobos, and traveling carnivals, and through it all, she serves witness to a multi-generational family.
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real life
- By Richard M. on 10-05-22
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The Boy They Tried to Hide
- The true story of a son, forgotten by society
- By: Shane Dunphy
- Narrated by: Shane Dunphy
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Boy They Tried to Hide is the startling true account of how truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.... Shane Dunphy was working as a resource teacher in a rural town when he was approached by the mother of one of his pupils, seeking help. She is worried for her troubled young son, who has been found leaving the house late at night to go deep into the woods near their home. He has spoken of meetings with a friend, Thomas, but no one else has seen him or knows who he is.
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Gripping
- By BSUforever on 10-13-17
By: Shane Dunphy
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Etched in Sand
- A True Story of Five Siblings Who Survived an Unspeakable Childhood on Long Island
- By: Regina Calcaterra
- Narrated by: Regina Calcaterra
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In this story of perseverance in the face of adversity, Regina Calcaterra recounts her childhood in foster care and on the streets and how she and her savvy crew of homeless siblings managed to survive years of homelessness, abandonment, and abuse. Regina Calcaterra's emotionally powerful memoir reveals how she endured a series of foster homes and intermittent homelessness in the shadow of the Hamptons, and how she rose above her past while fighting to keep her brother and three sisters together.
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Big eye-opener about our Foster Care system
- By Jo L. on 09-14-16
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Tressa
- The 12-Year-Old Mum
- By: Tressa Middleton
- Narrated by: Ruth Urquhart
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Tressa Middleton made UK history when she became Britain's youngest mum in 2006 aged just 12 years and eight months. Her case provoked shock and outrage - but the truth behind the headlines was far sadder than anyone could ever have imagined. Born into a life of poverty and neglect, Tressa was forced to grow up fast when was she taken into care at just four years old. She was returned to her mother's chaotic world, but by the age of seven, she was being abused by her own brother and at 11 years old she fell pregnant with his child. For years she kept his dark secret in an attempt to hold her family together until the truth threatened to destroy her completely.
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truly amazing such a beautiful n strong Young wome
- By kelly on 12-22-18
By: Tressa Middleton
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Angela's Ashes
- By: Frank McCourt, Jeannette Walls - introduction
- Narrated by: Frank McCourt, Jeannette Walls - introduction
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Why we think it’s a great listen: There’s no gentle way to put this – Frank McCourt’s performance of Angela’s Ashes is just better than the Pulitzer Prize-winning book. Frank McCourt shares his sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking story of growing up poor, Irish, and Catholic in the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Angela's Ashes.
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A classic book *and* a classic audiobook
- By Karen on 01-30-03
By: Frank McCourt, and others
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The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women
- Stories of Landscape and Community in the Mountain South
- By: Kami Ahrens
- Narrated by: Reyna Star
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The Foxfire Magazine, a literary journal first published in 1967 in Rabun Gap, Georgia, was founded on the belief that stories and meaning could be found in Appalachian spaces, not only in classics such as Shakespeare. Filled with poetry and prose from local students and authors, the magazine also featured interviews with relatives and neighbors. These oral histories conducted by students from the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School quickly became the star of the magazine. Now, pulled from the vast Foxfire archive, come twenty-one oral histories from southern Appalachian women.
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Great stories. Needs better narration
- By Mhall1111 on 01-02-25
By: Kami Ahrens
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Nearly Normal
- Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself
- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In her best-selling memoir North of Normal, Cea wrote with grace about her unconventional childhood - her early years living in a tipi in Alberta with her pot-smoking, free-loving counterculture family. But her struggles do not end when she leaves her family at the age of 13 to become a model. Honest and daring, Nearly Normal reveals the many ways that Cea's unconventional childhood continues to reverberate through the years.
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This one is just not for me
- By Pamela Plimpton on 03-15-19
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Silent Sisters
- A True Story
- By: Joanne Lee, Ann Cusack, Joe Cusack
- Narrated by: Melanie Crawley
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up, Joanne suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend and controlling relatives, as her mother lapsed into a downward spiral following the break-up of her marriage. But the consequences of her mother's lifestyle turned out to be worse than Joanne could ever have imagined. She already knew about the baby buried in a shallow makeshift grave next to the family plot. But when Joanne came across a red plastic bin in her mother's wardrobe in 2009, she realised that the family home held an even more sinister secret.
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save your money
- By Amazon Customer on 03-31-20
By: Joanne Lee, and others
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The Throwaway Children
- By: Diney Costeloe
- Narrated by: Anne Dover
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage, not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children. And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them - without their family's consent or knowledge - are Rita and Rosie.
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Depressing book
- By Michelle on 01-28-20
By: Diney Costeloe
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Everything Is Fine
- A Memoir
- By: Vince Granata
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Vince Granata remembers standing in front of his suburban home in Connecticut the day his mother and father returned from the hospital with his three new siblings in tow. He had just finished scrawling their names in orange chalk on the driveway: Christopher, Timothy, and Elizabeth. Twenty-three years later, Vince was a thousand miles away when he received the news that would change his life - his younger brother, Tim, propelled by unchecked schizophrenia, had killed their mother in their childhood home.
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Brutal and Beautiful
- By 3dogknits on 07-14-21
By: Vince Granata
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'Tis
- By: Frank McCourt
- Narrated by: Frank McCourt
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Listen as Frank tells in his own inimitable voice his story of how at the age of 19 he traveled from Limerick to New York in pursuit of the American dream. Despite the abundance of unsolicited advice he gets to "join the cops" and "stick to his own kind", Frank knows that he should educate himself and somehow rise above his circumstances.
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Marvelous
- By Tony on 02-05-06
By: Frank McCourt
Inspired Work of Art
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A more realistic little house on the prairie
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One of my favorite books EVER
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Half Broke Horses great
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Heartwarming and endearing
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Couldn't stop listening
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Half Broke Horses
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I love family stories
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If you could sum up Half Broke Horses in three words, what would they be?
what a story!What did you like best about this story?
i liked that Lilly's second husband, Jim Smith, was such a decent hard-working guy.What about Jeannette Walls’s performance did you like?
there is an honesty in her voice. she is extremely pleasing to listen to.Who was the most memorable character of Half Broke Horses and why?
Lilly - Grandma Smith. what a character!Any additional comments?
read both of Jeanette booksi am now a total Jeanette Walls fan!
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Very interesting book!
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