Jeannette Walls

Author Jeannette Walls has a very distinct voice which comes through again in her novel, Hang the Moon. With copious research and (I’m guessing) a little personal knowledge about the goings on in the area (Walls hails from Virginia where the book is set), Hang the Moon is a tale of family, greed, and bootlegging in the 1920s.

Sent away by her stepmother to live with an impoverished aunt, young Sallie Kincaid works as a laundress in the hills of Claiborne County. Upon her stepmother’s death, the Duke, Sallie’s dad and czar of the county, brings Sallie back home. At age 17, Sallie is hired on by the Duke to fetch his tenant rents and work with the moonshiners. As the years pass, Sallie and her family encounter numerous ups and downs and within a few years, Sallie finds herself taking over the Duke’s position as head of the county, running whiskey, balancing feuds and family, and trying to find love in a world where men overlord women.

Jeannette Walls’ style of prose is simplistic to today’s norm: no swearing, no sex. There is inference of both, but her writing is clean and pure. Quite an enjoyable switch to the norm of the in-you-face of the majority of today’s writers.

Walls has a very good history of well-written books, and I’m happy to had Hang the Moon to my bookshelf alongside the fabulous Half Broke Horses, another by Ms. Walls.… (meer)

Half Broke Horses is an easy-to-read, fun adventure of Lily Casey Smith and her family, Big Jim (husband), Rosemary, and Little Jim, from Lily's perspective as a ranchhand/manager and teacher in Arizona before WW2.

Half Broke Horses is a quick-paced rendition of some fun, funny, unfortunate, and sad tales that Lily and her family experience in the desert.

What I appreciate most about this is how the author, Lily Casey Smith's granddaughter, Jeannette Walls' lets Lily come through the pages in her voice, in her stories, and in her ways. There is no overt covering up, sugar-coating, or PC-ing the terminology or events. This was Lily's story, told in Lily's voice, in Lily's time. Something that we all need to keep in mind when reading books written from different eras - their version of what is proper is not necessarily ours, but doesn't make them necessarily wrong.

A very well-done book.… (meer)