Through MSNBC.com gossip columnist Jeannette Walls’ wildly successful and riveting 2005 memoir, “The Glass Castle,” readers were introduced to a cast of vibrant, eccentric characters from the author’s own life.
“Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel” is the New York Times bestselling author’s highly-anticipated new release.
The novel tells the story of Walls’ grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, a strong, resourceful woman who triumphed over any obstacle she encountered, whether natural disaster or personal tragedy.
“She’s a tough old broad, and I say that with great affection,” Walls said last weekend while in Austin for the Texas Book Festival. “Lily was one of those larger-than-life characters. She was just the sort of woman that never said anything, she always shouted it.”
Walls didn’t always intend for her grandmother to be the subject of her new book. She had originally set out to tell her mother’s tale because of a strong reader response to the eccentric Rose Mary Walls in “The Glass Castle.”
“While I was interviewing Mom, she kept saying, ‘You know, this book shouldn’t really be about me. It should be about my mother. She had a more interesting life than I did,’” Walls said.
Walls wasn’t immediately convinced.
“I resisted because I couldn’t interview Lily. But when I sat down to write it, I found that mom was actually right. Lily’s story had much more of a clearer storyline than my mother’s did, and I could relate to my grandmother because our values were similar. It was easier for me to capture her voice,” Walls said.
“Half Broke Horses” is written in the first person, from Lily’s point of view, which caused “a little bit of a crisis of categorization,” Walls said.
“I just wanted to do storytelling, but I wanted to bring the reader into the moment,” Walls said. “To do that, I took certain liberties with what could be strictly called nonfiction, so I called it fiction,” she said.
Still, Walls has never thought of herself as a fiction writer.
“I’ve always been drawn to nonfiction,” she said. “I have no imagination. I can’t make things up. But I’ve come to understand that so many fiction writers borrow from life. They just sort of cobble together pieces.”
This idea of creating fiction from true events can stem from the area with which one is most familiar, Walls said.
“I’m on a campaign to get everybody to research their own history,” she said. “I think that it’s always illuminating to find out something about where you come from. You should never be held hostage by your past, but at the same time, it does make you who you are. I think that anybody that’s interested in researching their own history will be shocked at the patterns that emerge.”
Author finds stories within own family
Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009
Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009
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