Book Description
From the best-selling author of Route 66 comes this long-awaited biography of one of America's most legendary folk heroes.
Award-winning historian Michael Wallis has spent several years re-creating the rich, anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859-1881), a deeply mythologized young man who became a legend in his own time and yet remains an enigma to this day. With the Gilded Age in full swing and the Industrial Revolution reshaping the American landscape, "the Kid," who was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in the New Mexico Territory at the age of twenty-one, became a new breed of celebrity outlaw. He arose amid the mystery and myth of the swiftly vanishing frontier and, sensationalized beyond recognition by the tabloids and dime-store romances of the day, emerged as one of the most enduring icons of the American West—not to mention one of Hollywood's most misrepresented characters. This new biography, filled with dozens of rare images and period photographs, separates myth from reality and presents an unforgettable portrait of this brief and violent life. 60 illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
A Commendable Biography Based on Limited Information.......2007-10-01
Several efforts have been made in an attempt to untangle the short and controversial life of Billy the Kid. I would suggest that this book by Michael Wallis is probably the best since he acknowledges when little is known about his subject, and speculates about what may have happened when information is lacking. That may not satisfy some people, but that is the best he can do. Billy the Kid actually did not pick up his charismatic title until the last year of his life. He initially went by the unlikely name of Henry McCarty, then changed it to Henry Antrim when his mother remarried, William H. Bonney, and finally Billy the Kid. Where he pulled out the name of Bonney is unknown. He was a very literate person, enjoyed music, and considered Turkey in the Straw and Silver Threads Among the Gold as his favorite songs. His tuburcular mother moved the family from the eastern part of the country (New York City)? to Indiana, Wichita, Kansas, and then to the southwest into New Mexico territory in hopes of improving her health. Following her death Billy was left to shift for himself. Kid was a common nickname for juveniles at that time, and wirey would probably be the best term to describe his short and slight frame. When the book got around to describing the Lincoln County war between competing factions involving horse thiefs I had difficulty keeping track of all the individuals involved. The Kid sided with an Englishman named John Tunstall who ended up getting murdered. Billy became somewhat of an anti-hero with his dramatic escape from jail in which he killed two guards after being sentenced to death. Kit Carson comes off as a villain with he and his men laying waste to Navajo Indians, their homes, food, horses, and other animals. The remaining Navajos began a 450 mile journey to join the Apaches. This became known as the Long Walk. This brought up reminders of the Cherokee Indians in 1839 under the regime of Andrew Jackson. I believe you will find the book to be enjoyable. The author has done a commendable job based on the information available on his subject.
A very well researched work.......2007-09-01
Michael Wallis has studied his subject well. Unlike many other authors he provides quite an insight not to just Billy the Kid, but many of the other players in his short life. This then gives a complete picture of the corrupt times in which he lived. This book is a must have for Billy the Kid students.
The Life as Well as the Legend.......2007-08-05
"This is the west, sir," the newspaperman tells Jimmy Stewart in _The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance_. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." And for over a hundred years, that is just what has happened to Billy the Kid, starting in countless dime novels and then historical reviews, a ballet by Aaron Copland, and scores of movies. Obviously the legend has a life of its own. The attraction of _Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride_ (Norton) by Michael Wallis is that the legend is fully appreciated. Wallis mentions but does not detail the many media representations the legend has presented after the Kid's death, but does show much of what the papers had to say about him during his life, and also what people who knew him said years after his death, and how unreliable it all is. There are certainly enough facts within the biography, but it is also a realistic look at the Kid's status as a legend in his own time. There were not only many false reports and representations of the Kid, but there are also voids of his life that no one can do anything but guess at. Wallis presents an enjoyable summary of what we can know as accurate and what is pure myth.
The Kid grew up in a changing masculine culture often known as "The Code of the West", which was a new way of dealing with threats. The tradition from British common law was that a man under threat was obligated to retreat until his back was against the wall and there was no alternative but to use deadly force against his opponent. The Code of the West, often celebrated as part of frontier self-reliance and integrity, merely signified that no such restraint under threat had to be shown; the courts even found that a "true man" did not have to back away from a fight, and it was a given that a man could pursue an adversary even once the threat had been lifted. The Kid was certainly one to stand his ground, and probably was on the offensive more than most, but his homicidal actions have been exaggerated. He has four confirmed killings to his name, some completely in self defense, but even before the end of his short life, the tally was being exaggerated. His enemies had good reason to do so. The Kid was caught up in what is called the Lincoln County War, a complex conflict that Wallis says "had been spawned long before in Ireland and England, in boardrooms and court chambers, in saloons and places of worship." It featured private armies of hired killers attempting to settle the conflict of two competing commercial property interests, with governmental corruption and ethnic clashes thrown in. Neither side represented "The Good Guys", and the Kid as a hired shootist was as culpable as any of the other members of the "banditti", but his opposition used him as a targeted bad boy. His own side didn't lack for corruption or malevolence, but the other side could mask its own corruption and malevolence by deliberately playing up the Kid's outlaw role and making him (despite a limited number of crimes) the most wanted man in the Southwest.
So it was that after an astonishing escape from the jail in Lincoln, the Kid was pursued by a posse including Pat Garrett. None of the legends about the Kid and Garrett being companions, pals, or fellow-outlaws are true. Garrett gunned him down in 1881, and his death was world news. A New York paper didn't start the exaggerations, but merely continued them, when it wrote that the Kid "had built up a criminal organization worthy of the underworld in any of the European capitals." The distortions were present during the Kid's lifetime, and have continued; he is a psychopathic serial killer, or a loner out for justice against the system, or a benefactor of the downtrodden, depending on which version of the legend is favored by times or tellers. Wallis's is a winning account of a small life which popular fascination has insisted on writing large.
Fabulous book.......2007-07-23
I travel extensively throughout New Mexico for my job and therefore bought the book-on-CD version of this text. It was fascinating, particularly as I drove through areas discussed in the book; Silver City, Santa Fe, Las Cruces. In terms of a book on Billy the Kid, this work is interesting and helps bring perspective to the story surrounding this folk hero. More important, however, is that the author did a beautiful job of conveying the realities of the times--for cowboys, Native Americans, Hispanics, African Americans, and the others who found their way to New Mexico. Living in New Mexico, it is fascinating to see how our peculiar ways of doing things in this state dates way back; some changes, much stays the same. I recommend this book for anyone interested in Billy the Kid, 'Old West' history, and New Mexico politics. Great job! Thanks for making my driving more tolerable.
Tedious and pedantic.......2007-07-20
Despite several attempts, in terms of a detailed reading, I didn't make it very far into this book: page 64 to be precise. After that I skimed it and, quite frankly, found nothing worthwhile here.
The author's style is, putting it mildly, bizarre. This is 1871, mind you. No electricity. Few labor saving devices. This is Wichita, Kansas, a place not particularly noted for balmy summer weather. Yet author Wallis has the temerity to write "Life in Wichita may have seemed sweet as huckleberry pie for Catherine McCarty. Her steamy City Laundry did a brisk trade thanks to the bundles of soiled hotel and whorehouse linen . . ." Wallis is describing a tubercular woman performing hard physical labor for long hours in less than a hospitable setting. Sure enough, two pages later Wallis writes "[a] stifling hot laundry was far from the ideal place for someone battling a chronic respiratory illness.
"
Wallis' use - or rather misuse - of language is jarring. In another instance, he has the family of the still young boy who would become the notorious Billy The Kid of "slipping" into a state, as if there was something furtive in their movement. There wasn't and the language is a poor attempt to add drama to an ordinary incident. The device doesn't work no matter how many times it is employed - and it is employed all too often.
Wallis takes off on a rant about and against handguns. There's little sense here. Elizabethans were complaining of violence in the streets just as modern day Houstonians do. The availability of early Colt revolvers had little to do with the sometimes lawless character of Western towns.
Not long after, Wallis complains of vigilante justice which was, in fact, an expression of the civilizing impulse. It may have been rough and ready, but it showed the desire of ordinary people for the protection of law.
Wallis makes many gratuitous comments of this kind. He takes the 19th Century folks to task for their lack of environmental sensitivity, ethnic tolerance and so on.
By page 64, I'd had it.
There are many other books available on Billy The Kid, which stick to their subject, avoid language eccentricity and don't try to apply 21st Century political correctness to the 19th Century.
Jerry
Book Description
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient comes a visionary novel, a virtuoso synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth, about William Bonney, a.k.a. "Billy the Kid, " a bloodthirsty ogre and outlaw saint. "Ondaatje's language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets."--Annie Dillard.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book For the Non-serious BTK Fan!.......2006-06-28
The book is very fun to read, but is not for the serious Billy the Kid fans. It holds your interest well, as long as, you don't take it too serious. The author is good at what he does and this book is well written. But, don't look for any new, serious information on Billy because it is not there. My review is written strictly from a nonfiction point of view and should be read with that in mind. I read the complete book and enjoyed reading it, but there is nothing in it to really grasp as fact.
A Postmodern Western.......2005-06-01
"The Collected Works of Billy the Kid" creates a beautiful and visceral written collage about the legendary Billy the Kid. Written in a mixture of prose, poetry, clippings and interviews, the reader may not always be sure of whose voice they are hearing and whether the pictures being painted in their head are based on reality or fiction; or both. You can feel in your very skull the heat of the mid-day sun... This is the wonder that is Ondaatje's postmodern take on the Western.
It is a book to be experienced; read and re-read. Each time you return you will find something new to consider and move with. The language Ondaatje uses is among the most compelling that I have ever read. Best consumed with the suspended need for the linear and clear.
Oh, for yesteryear.......2004-07-29
There was a time, pre-English Patient, when the innovative work of Michael Ondaatje appeared assured of standing the test of time, as this slender, groundbreaking volume of poetry, prose, and prose-poetry, now some 35 years old, makes clear. It is, arguably, if not the best--that would be Coming Through Slaughter--then certainly the most felicitous work in Ondaatje's ouevre, and one would be hard pressed indeed to describe it as anything less than a work of sparkling genius.
That the author's more recent, utterly conventional efforts--first Patient, then Anil's Ghost--have, by comparison, evidenced such a precipitous decline, is only sad. But, if you want to read Ondaatje at the near-height of his powers, you could do far worse than Billy the Kid. (Or Slaughter. Or Running in the Family.)
Those were the days. And they were better days. And ballsier days. And brassier. Far better days indeed than Mr. Ondaatje's nowadays. It is the author's express lack of nerve, the lack of nerve expressed in his recent work, that one now deplores. But when Ondaatje was great, he wrote Billy the Kid, the great work of a once-great writer. And in those days, few, few indeed, were greater.
COULD'VE BEEN LESS PRETENTIOUS.......2003-06-12
The book is full of desultory excerpts from Billyýs diary: stories about certain people ý acquaintances, friends, foes, cops, outlaws (like the one he was) is told, which seem irrelevant until those people are referred to in some other part of the book, involved in a small incident involving Billy himself, or just Billy, shedding some more light on their persona. At times, it does feel that Ondaatje is being pretentious by making efforts to purposely disconnect fragments of the book and placing them hugger-mugger, just to make the book a little bit more outré, at other times, it is this annoying and deliberate effort by him, that adds color to this book, and forces the reader to read it more than once to get a grip of what is happening in the book; and with the book becoming more and more comestible with every subsequent reading, who could complain.
The poetry, as it seems to me, gets too vague to understand sometimes, and seems grossly out-of-context, though choice of words seem quite interesting. Moreover, it seems like one needs to know beforehand, the context of the poetry, and a brief know-how of Billyýs life, both of which could not be found in the book. This makes the understanding of certain poems, a bit too hard. The simplest poems of the book, is what give it high points: like the one about swatting a fly ý in all its simplicity, this detailed poetic- explanation of how Billy killed an innocuous fly, in addition to the people he had killed, hits the reader hard, with all its earthiness. Also worth highlighting is another poetry-of-sort, which describes the snoring, sleeping friend of Billy, and how his stertorous snoring made a funny whistling sound, when the air from his mouth was forced out of the gap in between his frontal pair of teeth: unassuming, touching and effective.
The book is rather funny, in the way the various killings and encounters are described. No detail is spared, and the gore is described, exactly the way it had happened: and all this, without an iota of emotion ý stoic and cold. Amongst the bits from Billyýs diary, about the people he knew, there is this interesting story about this mad-man, who used to raise ýfreakyý dogs; he cross-bred them, sub-Rosa, only to be brutally killed by them. Also, the excerpt about Paul Garrett, the ideal assassin and Sallie Chisum makes one feel there were really some colorful and adorable people in Billyýs life. Also, Billyýs ýexclusive jail interviewý is ýin-your-faceý, and at times, laughable.
All in all, the book is worth the money paid for it, though there are instances, where some material seem grossly out-of-context and leaves the reader lost: it couldýve been much better off without Ondaatjeýs pretentious effort to be weird.
Billy the Kid Speaks!.......2003-04-25
Michael Ondaatje's sprawling sequence of verse interspersed with poetic prose exposes the persona poem as one of poetry's surest paths to honesty. Through unsettlingly precise detail and unsentimental empathy, the character of Billy the Kid is recreated-and revisited-in all its brutality and splendor. Ondaatje's unflinching commitment to honesty yields a persona that is as vibrant and realized as possible, resulting in a series of confessions that range from disturbing to revelatory.
The image, consistently startling, graphic and discomforting, carries the speaker through the entire sequence. Whereas most imagery depends on the eye for effect, Ondaatje utilizes all five senses throughout the book. We taste wine "so fine/it was like drinking ether," we feel Pat Garret's "oiled rifle" against Maxwell's cheek and hear it fire beside his ear, "leaving a powder scar on Maxwell's face that stayed with him all his life." We smell the smoke in Garret's shirt and taste the nicotine in his mouth. At times, the stunned silence of Ondaatje's unremitting narrative conjures a hush so palpable that we can "listen to deep buried veins in our palms." It doesn't take long for The Collected Works of Billy the Kid to immerse the reader in its own unique world, accessible now only through words and photographs.
Most memorable, though, are the intensely graphic images that sprout from the page throughout the book. The chicken digging for a vein in the dying Gregory's neck, the warts in Billy the Kid's throat "breaking through veins like pieces of long glass tubing," the blood caked in Tom O'Folliard's "hair, arms, shoulders, everywhere." All these paint an unmistakable landscape of a bleak and desolate New Mexico in the 1880's, a scene so haunted that even "the sun turned into a pair of hands" and pulled out hairs from Billy the Kid's head which, we're told later, is "smaller than a rat." Not one potentially enlivening detail is overlooked; not one square inch of landscape or action escapes the reader's view.
Ondaatje's ambitious project demonstrates that the recipe for great writing is precise detail compounded by believable emotion, a recipe he follows to the letter. Ondaatje executes these two devices so effectively at times that a kind of piercing, revelatory insight emerges periodically. Magical disclosures such as the characterization of Pat Garrett as one who "became frightened of flowers because they grew so slowly he couldn't tell what they planned to do," help to fully realize both the character of Billy the Kid and the times in which he lived, and establish Ondaatje's book as perhaps one of the greatest attempts at persona poetry in the 20th century.
Average customer rating:
- This is a great history lesson on the old west
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The Old West Collection
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ASIN: 1591502446 |
Book Description
The mythical legends and historical allure of the old west come galloping onward with The Old West Collection: Amazing Legends and Incredible Tales of the American West. This thundering 8-CD or cassette audio compendium celebrates the epic events of America's frontier, whether rediscovering the California gold rush at Sutter's Mill in '49 or recreating the outsize personalities of John Jacob Astor to Belle Starr and Billy the Kid. From racing on horseback for Oklahoma land in '89 to Dodge and Last Chance Gulch, The Old West Collection sits you around the campfire vividly recounting the saga and stories of a dusty, velvet-trimmed era.
Tape/CD 1: The Shining Mountains
Searching for beaver, the mountain men of the old west journeyed through a wild, feral land teeming with uncertainty, extreme weather conditions, and often hostile inhabitants.
Tape/CD 2: The Oregon Trail & The Days of '49
From the gold rush at Sutter's Mill to the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails, the wagon trains of '49 were met with a volatile mix of fast fortune and insurmountable hardship.
Tape/CD 3: War Paths in the West
Bloody massacres and devastating battles - the tumultuous wars on the plains claimed masses, from Red Cloud's War and Wounded Knee, to the Bozeman Trail and Little Big Horn.
Tape/CD 4: Home on the Range
With the Oklahoma land runs and newly formed railways, the Range gave birth to the American cowboy, cattlemen, and ranches stretching hundreds of miles across the plains.
Tape/CD 5: Hands Up! The Outlaws
Meet the bad-boys of the western era, from Jesse James to Billy the Kid, who set the stage for bank robbery, corruption, and the Old West's infamous train hold-ups.
Tape/CD 6: The Men Who Wore the Star, The Lawmen
Restoring order to an outlaw-driven era, men like Doc Holliday, the Texas Rangers, Wild Bill Hickock, and the U.S. Marshal brought forth justice to the unruly west.
Tape/CD 7: Babylons on the Plains, The Towns
Through the gold boom towns loomed red light districts, saloons, and dance halls amidst the meat markets, carpenter shops, and opera houses.
Tape/CD 8: Six Guns & Hoop Skirts, The Women
Who tamed the wild west? The pioneering women who brought civilization to a harsh frontier from Belle Starr and Annie Oakley, to Baby Doe and Calamity Jane.
Customer Reviews:
This is a great history lesson on the old west.......2003-11-12
This fine collection of historical facts and stories is great. I was transported back to the old west as I drove 600 miles across Kansas visualizing things I was hearing. The stories made the trip quite effortless. I can use lots of what I learned as I entertain folks with my old west music programs.
Book Description
Lucky Luke is a one-hundred-percent real hero of the Old West. He is squarely on the side of the law and dedicates his life to seeing that justice is done. He travels around delivering it wherever he goes, accompanied by his faithful companion, Jolly Jumper. Arriving at Fort Weakling, he changes into a formidable bandit. Why? Does his meeting with Billy the Kid, a living legend of the Old West, influence him? JUV008000; CGN002000
Customer Reviews:
Appealing to children and adults.......2007-09-06
This is another installment in the hugely popular Lucky Luke series. This English-language edition by 9th Cinebook helped get my 12-year-old hooked into the Lucky Luke series. One of the fun aspects of the Lucky Luke books is his fictional interactions with real-life personalities from the Old West: Billy the Kid, The Dalton Gang, Jesse James, Calamity Jane and others.
Customer Reviews:
Excelent book.......2007-06-02
Nolan does a great job in describing the events of Billy the Kids life. One of the best historians out there. i would recommend this book for all who are interested in Billy The Kid. Unlike the book written by Jim Johnson this book is full of facts.
Fred Nolan is one of the best..........2006-06-28
Fred Nolan is one of the most recognized and popular historians of the old west, but where he makes many of his mistakes is by repeating too many things written by previous authors without sufficient evidence. I find most of his statements impossible to prove incorrect, but there are a few problems in his writing. Also, the editing of his book has a few flaws in that there are many glowing contradictions within the book. But, if you can figure out where the errors were made, the rest of the book is interesting and appears to be factual. In comparison to the other books currently on the market on Billy, this is one of the better ones, especially if like good pictures..
The real story of "Billy the Kid!".......2005-11-02
Frederick Nolan has established a book on "Billy the Kid," which out does most before and after it's initial publication in 1999. An easy to follow book for all readers that tells the true story based on documentation and "real" proof to the life and death of "Billy the Kid." Bye far the best out there on this subject matter. Purchase it!!!
Mike Koch, Author of "The Kimes Gang."
Almost perfect - probably the best........2005-10-28
What lacks in this describtion in the life og Billy the Kid, is a bit more detail in the last chapters. Clearly Frederick Nolan is most interestet in the Lincoln County War - thats why I give the book 4 stars and not 5.
Having said that I must hurry to make clear that this book probaly is the best biografy to read about Billy the Kid if you are just af normal human being knowning nothing first hand of the old west.
I am such a person, and when I started reading the book, Frederick Nolan unfolded the true old west before my eyes in a manner I have never imagined anyone would be able to. He writes in a nice easy-to-read way even for a guy like me who hasn't got english as my first language. He mannages to tell all the details of the story in such a way, that it is easy to understand what was going on, and why people were acting as the were - and that is a very big accevement as some subjekts in the book - for exampel the Lincoln County War - is af very complicated affair involving many different persons.
Frederik Nolans mission with this book is to show us the kid as he were in the old west as it was in the late 1870ties. And he succedes. He shows us a young man with a difficult childhood who has driftet from one bad area to another only to end up in the lions cave - Lincoln County - where a great cattle-war is about to break. And from their on his fate is seeled. Being the one he is with the past he has - he has no chance of avoiding bekomming a part of the war, and in the end one of the most feared - and wanted - outlaws in the territorry.
Best Billy the Kid Book Ever!!!.......2005-06-02
Upon arrival of this book, I could not put it down! The book is filled with factual information, tons of photos, and interesting facts all about Billy the Kid's life. I enjoyed the "newer" photos that the author took of Lincoln, Las Vegas, Blazer's Mill as they are seen today! I plan to read, and re-read this book several times! I highly recommend this book to any Billy the Kid fan!
Book Description
Subtitled: The Noted Desperado of the Southwest, Whose Deeds of Daring and Blood made His Name A Terror in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico-- By Pat Garrett--Sheriff of Lincoln Co., N.M., By Whom He Was Finally Hunted Down and Captured By Killing Him.
Download Description
Subtitled: The Noted Desperado of the Southwest, Whose Deeds of Daring and Blood made His Name A Terror in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico-- By Pat Garrett--Sheriff of Lincoln Co., N.M., By Whom He Was Finally Hunted Down and Captured By Killing Him.
Customer Reviews:
An interesting book of sorts.......2006-02-20
This book starts out slow and dry. It didn't get exciting until Pat Garrett started to take over the story. This doesn't occur until about midway through the book. Don't expect this to be a screenplay for the movies Young Guns and Young Guns II. The book isn't that exciting but it does introduce you to an interesting character profile of Billy the Kid. Personally I feel that the first half of the book is fiction that is read for pure entertainment and the second half covers the real story of the Kid. I would recommend this book if you are interested in the Kids story and you want to read every angle of his story.
Could have used a ghostwriter here!!!.......2001-09-18
Some very interesting facts are in this book. However, the book is dry and boring. So much work went into putting this book together, that it's a shame there wasn't a ghostwriter working with Mr. Garrett to capture the emotions and the urgency in what could have been a fascinating book. I'm afraid I only got halfway through this book, before I gave up. I hate to walk away from a book without finishing it... but there was no way I could finish this story.
Sometimes the best history is written by those who make it........2000-10-08
This is quite a work. A quasi-biography, a documentary and an adventure tale all rolled into one is the best I can do to try and classify it as something. Essentially, Garrett's book is generic - an oddity which caan only ever be a `one off' due entirely to the nature of the writers' relation to their subject.
Garrett and, to a lesser degree, Upson, write as technicians of fact-conveyance rather than writers. I found that this actually served to whet my appetite to learn more as I read. When you're hearing about a legend straight from the mouth of the horse that was chasing him, the awe you feel overrides your contempt for shoddy writing style.
Having said that, the book is just the right length and so is nowhere near as boring as the claims I had heard here and elsewhere prior to my buying and reading it. The writing, although nonchalantly functional most of the time, is kept tight which is necessary. To have imbued it with imaginative streaks and cosmetic touch-ups would have certainly destroyed the flow of what is, you'll soon find if you pick it up, a fast river of intrigue. Anyway, Upson has done quite a good job at injecting artistry in his sections so there is no really terrible lack of good writing here.
Of course, Garrett's leaden, subdued delivery do deaden the thrills a little. It's interesting how he balances his attitude toward `The Kid' throughout the book. At times, he seems to speak admirably of him (allbeit apparently with a false tone sometimes); at others, he seems genuinely distanced from him, almost indifferent to whether or not their paths will actually cross.
Biased? Of course it is. What do you expect? Even so, `The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid' is made the definitive work on the topic because it, like the legend it examines, is a product of the same time. The best way to read it is with an analytical mind. By all means, challenge Garrett on his words when you feel he's deviating from his function as a chronicler - that is the point of reading this book a hundred and twenty years later. Unlike more recent biographers who would do exhaustive research based on documents, wide-sweeping second-hand information and historical `givens', it's best to go straight to those `givens' yourself and get to grips with them. Sheriff Garrett's book is a remarkable fountain of first generation facts and factoids and it commands the respect of academics and casual readers alike because of its durability. After all, just how many accounts of book length from the Old West survive today, especially those that receive serious scrutiny from a variety of disciplines.
My only peeve lies in Garrett and Upson's ardent declarations regarding the aftermath of `The Kid's slaying. Why did they repeat themselves so many times that `The Kid' was dead and buried and `that was that'. It seems that Garrett was a little insecure in case he was challenged over the fate of his quarry. Whatever the case, the insecure tone he adopts in the last pages seems to somehow lend strength to the camp of `Flat Earthers' who claim that Billy the Kid survived into the next century....cue Brushy Bill Roberts......
A valuable book because of the relationship of the author.......2000-08-21
The introduction to this book by J.C. Dyke is good, and explains a lot; especially the last paragraph, wherein he says,"The reading (and study) of [this book] is essential to an understanding of that mythical hero, the Robin Hood of the Southwest, who was once just a bucktoothed, thieving, murderous little cowboy-gone-bad, Billy the Kid."
Of course, the author, Pat Garrett, was not an unprejudiced reporter of events, for it was he who ended the life of William Bonney, also known as William Antrim (his foster father's surname). It is also interesting I think, in passing, to mention that Billy the Kid was not a product of the West, but a transplanted New Yorker.
Elsewhere, you will read that Pat Garrett's writing effort is poor, and leaves much to be desired. He readily admits it. In his own words, he says, "I make no pretension to literary ability, but propose to give to the public in intelligible English, 'a round, unvarnished tale,' unadorned with superfluous verbiage."
Garrett is motivated, he says, by an "impulse to correct the thousand false statements which have appeared in the newspapers and in yellow-covered cheap novels."
And, there is no doubt at all that the stories of Billy's exploits were greatly exaggerated by an Eastern press eager for stories of gunplay and adventure on the Western frontier. Today's myth of Billy the Kid is largely descended from the pulp stories created by the inflamed minds of Eastern "journalists" and the latter-day Hollywood screen-writers who have made no attempt at all to portray the truth.
Pat Garrett claims to have known Billy throughout the period known as the "Lincoln County Wars," and having listened to Bonney's reminiscences around campfires and says he has interviewed many persons since Bonney's death. That much would seem to be undisputed.
Bonney was born in 1859, six years after the birth of another Southwestern hardcase, John Wesley Hardin. In fact, they were contemporaries and were raising hell at the same time. Bonney, however, died young at the age of 21, in 1881. Hardin died at the age of 42--twice Billy's age--in 1895. And, if the rumors are true, Hardin probably killed twice as many men. They both started young. Both are reputed to have had fearful tempers. Neither were killed in the face-to-face "quick draw" shootouts so dear to the hearts of Hollywood writers. Instead, both of their executioners used stealth to kill their quarries.
According to Garrett, in Pete Maxwell's darkened bedroom, where he shot Billy to death, Billy was holding a butcher knife in one hand and drawing his double-action Colt "Lightning" revolver ("self-cocker") with the other, while asking in Spanish, "Quien es? Quien es?" ("Who is it? Who is it?") They were, again according to Garrett, at point blank range. The only other witness was Pete Maxwell. There are other versions to the story, including one which insists that Bonney was unarmed except for the knife, which he had used to cut off a chunk of beef from a hanging carcass outside, because he was hungry.
My question is this: it is undisputed that he was holding the knife, and the reason for which he had it. So, where was the beef? It is unlikely that he ate it raw, or stuck it in a pocket. Probably he was holding it in his other hand, intending to cook it. In which case, if he had a revolver tucked in his waistband, he must have had to drop the beef to fetch his revolver.
It is probably of little importance; a Billy Bonney armed with a butcher knife, at close quarters, would still have needed killing. But, did he make the fatal mistake of coming to a gunfight armed only with a knife?
I think that this is an important book, if for no other reason than the relationship that existed between the author and William Bonney. I recommend it. My version is in the hard cover.
Joseph Pierre
A SHAME.........2000-02-24
A shame that Mr. Garrett had absolutely no writing talent at all, because the book could be good, dealing about one of the greatest legendsof all times.
Customer Reviews:
A hit and miss book on Billy the Kid........2006-07-11
This book was written by a ghost writer for Pat Garrett and set the stage for future Billy the Kid authors. The book is fictionalized in many places in an attempt to make the book flow better and to make the book more interesting. But, since the book was co-authored by Garrett, succeeding authors used it as a reference thinking he knew the kid well. But, Garrett did not know Billy as well as he led people to believe. The really good things about the book are the areas talking about Garrett's own experiences. But, the reader needs to be careful and not believe everything they read in this book. It could hurt them when reading more factual accounts of Billy's life in the future.
Interesting (non) historical reading........2005-08-21
The story of Billy the kid is always good. Here it is in the form the sheriff, who shot him, wants us to belive.
The book is a mix of dime-novel fantasies and fackts of the capture and killing of the kid.
It is funny to read how the kid apperes in to forms: the form of a boyish dime-novel hero and in a (more authentic) blurry form of af kid-warrior-criminal who is in over his head and with no real purpose in life.
Throughout the pages of the story the historican, Frederic Nolan, hints us in note-form any time the writers of the book forgets importen facts, exaggerates, is inaccurate or makes up events of pure fantasi. He also supply us with background knowledge on importens events that needs bigger understanding than the writers supply us with - thus putting the fackts wright and making the reader see, what details in the story the writers perhaps did'nt know, had misunderstood or wanted to conceal.
"The authentic life of Billy, the Kid" is not at all authentic, but it is written by a person who knew the kid first hand and had a big influence on his story. It is funny to read how he describes his own role - a role that right from the start has been surrounded with controversy.
Good entertaining reading. But not the most trustworthy biografy, if you want to know what really happend in the life of Billy the kid.
Garrett's killing of The Kid is suspect!.......2004-03-06
The simple fact that there are so many other facts about the killing of Billy The Kid besides Garrett's story makes me wonder if he really killed The Kid at all. I really think that Garrett simply wanted the reward money for himself (which he was denied) and to use this event to help him further his political career. Seems to me it did not work since everything he did afterwards seemed to fail for him. Truthfully, I think we will never find out the truth except that Garrett will be remembered as the man who killed The kid by those who believe Garrett's story. I for one as with many other Historians think that Garrett's story is not totally truthful.
"Billy The Kid".......2002-02-01
I would like to begin by telling you that this was a great action packed book. It was very exciting. What I enjoyed most about this book is how Billy is always getting into truble. When he isn't robbing a bank he is getting chased by indians. The only critism I have about the book is it makes Billy seem like a hero. Billy wasn't really a hero he was an outlaw.
Good mix of history and myth-busting.......2001-02-09
Frederick Nolan's annonations to Pat Garrett's famous book do an excellent job of debunking many of the oft-repeated myths about Billy the Kid. I especially like the fact that Nolan occasionally ranges beyond Garrett's book itself to discuss how these Billy the Kid myths have been portrayed by later books and films. His commentary also helps fill in some of the background details about the Lincoln County war. You should note that I said "details," however; if you've never read about the Lincoln County war, this work probably isn't the ideal introduction to that messy, complicated affair. Nolan mostly seems to assume his readers are already at least mildly acquainted with the major events, places and people involved in the Lincoln County war. I also sometimes found myself wishing Nolan had annonated a bit more extensively (there are some entire chapters -- albeit very short ones -- through which he offers no commentary). The book's layout, while reasonably clear and clean, sometimes leaves a bit to be desired, with Nolan's notes often falling on different pages than the original text he's commenting upon.
Book Description
There has never been a fighter like Billy Conn. Handsome as a movie star and tough as a junkyard dog, Conn threw combinations with the beauty and speed of later masters Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali. The kid from the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh began boxing professionally at age 16, as his manager Johnny Ray fed him older, more experienced pros in a "baptism of fire." Conn developed quickly. At age 19 and 20 he defeated most of the world's best middleweights, a division rich with talent. Still growing, by age 21 he won the world light-heavyweight title. After dominating that division, he sought greater challenge in the heavyweight division. He beat three of the best heavyweights, one by knockout and two by easy decision. Only one challenge remained - the great heavyweight champion Joe Louis. Their first fight remains one of boxing's all-time classics, ranked by some as the greatest fight ever. Conn's story transcends boxing. He pursued and eloped with the love of his life, the beautiful Mary Louise Smith, despite her father's vehement and public opposition. Conn and his father-in-law tangled in a chaotic brawl at a lavish christening party at the Smith home. Billy starred in a Hollywood movie, The Pittsburgh Kid, and developed friendships with big stars like Bob Hope, Robert Taylor, and Frank Sinatra. Through all the glamour Billy remained the unpretentious "kid" from gritty Pittsburgh, the city he loved. He became an icon of that city, of the downtrodden Depression-era working class, and of the American Irish. Conn's place in boxing and American folk history has been neglected and forgotten in recent decades. His story of a poor kid with talent and spirit who went for it all is one worth reading.
Customer Reviews:
A Pittsburgh Story by a Pittsburgh Native.......2007-07-10
The story of Billy Conn cannot be told apart from the story of the city in which he was born, and in which he died, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Paul Kennedy realized that when he set out to write this biography of a boxing legend, one whose story, as noted by another reviewer of this book, has been sadly neglected until now. As Kennedy notes, Conn died in 1993, and the city he left was much like the city he grew up in, a quilt of ethnic neighborhoods, each with a character and reputation of its own. Kennedy captures what it meant to grow up Irish and poor in East Liberty, "sliberty" to Pittsburghers. Kennedy knows firsthand what it means to grow up Irish on the East End of Pittsburgh - he was raised just a 5-minute trolley ride from East Liberty, and, though not poor, he was one of nine children of a foreman at Westinghouse Electric. Paul Kennedy knows of what he writes, he's walked that walk, and his background as a journalist and historical writer serve him well in this tale of a Pittsburgh boy who almost grabbed the crown, but was noble, even in failing. To understand Billy Conn, you have to understand Pittsburgh. And Paul Kennedy understands Pittsburgh, and so will his readers who take the time to read "Billy Conn, the Pittsburgh Kid."
Bruno F. Battistoli
Kingston, New York
The Pittsburgh Kid is a Knockout.......2007-07-08
It's about time that someone wrote a biography of Billy Conn, one of the best boxers in the sport's history and an American original. This marvelously entertaining book brings Conn to life and allows the reader to feel like he is right at ringside. Kennedy obviously possesses substantial knowledge of boxing and an appreciation for the effort involved in becoming a champion of the sport.
The books recounts many of Conn's bouts in vivid, almost breathless detail. Kennedy builds steam as he takes you through chapters called "rounds," culminating in the classic match, Conn versus Joe Louis for the World Heavyweight title.
Kennedy writes with humor, respect and an obvious affection for Conn, filling the book with telling anecdotes that reveal Conn's character and legendary Irish charm. He shows the reader both the boxer and the private man, who, despite his tough, aggressive boxing style was also an artist, family man and clearly a romantic. The colorful story of Conn's lifelong devotion to his wife, Mary Lou, is woven throughout the book, and humanizes Conn.
An added feature is Kennedy's attention to the setting and the era. He ties Conn's advancement in boxing to current events of that time, giving the reader a much appreciated context.
I highly recommend this book. Conn has been neglected and his story is well worth reading, whether you are a general sports fan or a boxing fan. For boxing enthusiasts, it's really a must read. Some older readers might also enjoy the nostalgia that Kennedy evokes by his descriptions of life in America in the Depression and World War II eras. A final bonus - it's also a terrific history of that great sports city, Pittsburgh.
Lacking insight.......2007-07-04
This book is great IF your only interested in detailed descriptions of Conn's fights. Unfortunatly the auther gives us almost nothing on the Conn out of the ring.Considering the Conn family gave there support I expected alot more than the 98% of this book that is fight blow by blow accounts.
Im hopeing Sweet William due out in Nov. will be much more informative.
Save your money and find a copy of the 85 sports illustrated with the story called The boxer & the blond and you'll find out alot more about Mr. Conn than in this whole book.
Book Description
Cowboy, army guide, farmer, peace officer, and character in his own right, John P. Meadows arrived in New Mexico from Texas as a young man. During his life in the Southwest, he knew or worked for many well-known characters including: William “Billy the Kid” Bonney, Sheriff Pat Garrett, John Selman, Hugh Beckwith, Charlie Siringo, and Pat Coghlan. Meadows helped investigate the disappearance of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain, and later bought part of downtown Tularosa, New Mexico, where he served a term as mayor.
The recollections gathered here and edited by John P. Wilson are based on Meadows's interviews with a reporter for the Alamogordo News, a partial transcript of his reminiscences given at the Lincoln State Monument, and a talk he gave by invitation at Roswell, New Mexico, to refute inaccuracies in the 1930 MGM movie Billy the Kid. Meadows's lucid presentation appeared in the Roswell, New Mexico, Daily Record where he spoke about Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, and other experiences from the Southwest's frontier days.
“I am not going to leave the country, and I am not going to reform, neither am I going to be taken alive again.”—Billy the Kid to John P. Meadows, May 1, 1881
A collection of John P. Meadows's interviews originally given to refute inaccuracies in the 1930 movie Billy the Kid. Also includes Meadows's memories of the Southwest's frontier days and the characters he knew.
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