Half Broke Horses/Jeannette Walls

As a genre, this "novel" is hard to categorize. It is a memoir in part - the story of the author's grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, but the author calls it a novel as she extrapolates the feelings and dialog of the subject as she has no way of knowing exactly how things happened.

With that said, Lily Casey is an interesting, independent, and sometimes exasperating woman who had a life that was certainly atypical. Growing up on a ranch with a father who trained horses, she became a schoolteacher, gambler, horse racer, and rancher - as well as wife and mother. She learned to fly a plane and drive an automobile in terrifying fashion.

She also managed to get fired from almost every teaching post she had because she never could conform to the standards of the community. (One wonders why she never seemed to understand that it was as much her personality as it was the timidity of her employers that was responsible for that.)

With that said, this is an interesting book, a quick read, and the author brings a unique and fascinating portrayal of a tenacious woman to life.
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Other books read since last post - the Jacqueline Carey series: Kushiel's Chosen, Kushiel's Avatar, Kushiel's Scion, Kushiel's Justice, Kushiel's Mercy.