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Summary
Summary
"A marvelous journey into both history and imagination...A perfectly compelling and fast-paced story" ( San Francisco Chronicle ) from Ron Hansen about an iconic American criminal of the old West: legendary outlaw, Billy the Kid.
Born Henry McCarty, Billy the Kid was a diminutive, charming, blond-haired young man who, growing up in New York, Kansas, and later New Mexico, demonstrated a precocious dexterity at firing six-shooters with either hand--a skill that both got him into and out of trouble and that turned him into an American legend of the old West. He was smart, well-spoken, attractive to both white and Mexican women, a good dancer, and a man with a nose for money, horses, and trouble. His spree of crimes and murders has been immortalized in dime westerns, novels, and movies. But the whole story of his short, epically violent life has never been told as it has been here.
"The Kid's story has been told many times. But not like this" ( The New York Times Book Review ). In his incredible novel, Ron Hansen showcases his masterful research and inimitable style as he breathes life into history, bringing readers back into the late 1800s and into Billy's boyhood as a ranch hand just trying to wrest a fortune from an unforgiving landscape. We are with Billy in every gunfight and horse theft and get to know him in full before his grand death in a hail of bullets in 1881 at the age of twenty-one. Original, powerful, and swiftly told, The Kid is an "entertaining and lively...an excellent, transportive read" ( Publishers Weekly , starred review).
Author Notes
Ron Hansen was born in Omaha Nebraska in 1947.He received a BA degree in English from Creighton University in Nebraska in 1970. He is the author of more than 20 books, stories, and anthologies. He received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for his book Nebraska, a collection of short fiction, in 1989. Some of his other works include Mariette in Ecstasy; the children's book, The Shadowmaker; Desperadoes; the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which won the John Edgar Wideman Award in 1984; and the novel Atticus, a suspenseful murder mystery detailing a father's fierce love for his son. Atticus was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1996.
Among the anthologies written by Hansen are The Sun So Hot I Froze To Death, Can I Just Sit Here For A While?, and True Romance. His short stories, with titles ranging from "His Dog" to "Playland," have appeared in the Stanford Alumni Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, the Iowa Review, Esquire, and many others.
Besides holding Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, Hansen has received a Lyndhurst Foundation Grant and is a fellow of the University of Michigan Society of Fellows. Hansen has also held the position of Gerald Manley Hopkins S.J. Professor of Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University.
In May 2006 he was inducted into the College of Fellows at Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. Also in that year The Assasination of Jesse James was adapted for the screen. In 2009 Mariette In Ecstasy was adapted for the stage at Lifetime Theater in Chicago.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hansen's (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) fictional treatment of Billy the Kid, the Old West killer, is entertaining and lively, a portrayal of swift and deadly frontier justice in the early 1880s of New Mexico. This is a fictionalized biography of Billy (1859-1881), but Hansen is no apologist for Billy's cattle rustling, horse stealing, and murderous ways; instead, revealing Billy the Kid for what he really was-a handsome, likable, cold-blooded gunman. Much of the story covers the Lincoln County War between two rival business and political factions, the Murphy-Dolan bunch of owlhoots and the Tunstall-McSween partnership favored by Billy and his unwashed gang of vigilante Regulators. When Tunstall is murdered by a Murphy-Dolan posse, Billy and his saddle pals vow bloody revenge, and start bumping off Murphy-Dolan men, including the crooked county sheriff. When the Kid is not gunning down baddies and others who just get in the way, he is flirting, singing, and dancing with Mexican beauties, and courting Sallie Chisum, the niece of a real-life cattle baron, John Chisum. Both gangs get whittled down by soaking up too much lead, until Billy is convicted of murder, escapes jail after killing his two jailers, and is pursued by tenacious lawman Pat Garrett. Hansen's colorful description of the New Mexico Territory as a lawless land of lying politicians and thieving businessmen is historically accurate, resulting in an excellent, transportive read. Agent: Peter Matson, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A portrait of the world-famous, short-lived outlaw and the milieu that created his myth.For veteran novelist Hansen (She Loves Me Not: New and Selected Stories, 2012, etc.), Billy the Kid was one part angry gunslinger, one part victim of circumstance: the late-19th-century New Mexico territory was so ill-governed, he argues, that the Kid was no more lawless in many ways than the ostensible lawmen. Indeed, he wasnt born violent: his preferred crime early on was horse thievery, his chief talent was wily escapes, and his first killing was arguably self-defense. But he soon fell in with a gang of fellow thieves and became entangled in the Lincoln County War, in which rival businesses scrabbling for authority devolved into gunplay. It was a collective thing, but only Kid Bonney got accused of the murders, the unnamed narrator explains after one gunfight ended, typical of his mythos. The Kids perceived criminality was a function of who was in charge; the territorys governor, Lew Wallace, promised the Kid a pardon but was too distracted by the epic Christian novel he was writing, Ben-Hur, to protect him from Pat Garrett, another outlaw who wound up wearing a sheriffs badge. Hansen has done his research, which is often to the novels detrimentthe Lincoln County War involved a raft of characters, and he doesnt always do much to color them. The Kid, too, is often a disappointingly vague figure, a handsome scrapper talented at escapes and charming with women but hard to get a bead on. The novels strength is its understanding of the fluidity of authority in a West where judgments of legality go to the highest bidder or at the insistence of a gun. By the end of the novel (and Billys brief life) its clear he hasnt gotten an entirely fair shake. But the novel reveals more of the territorys character than its occupants. A somber and surprisingly dry Wild West tale. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
RON HANSEN HAS a thing for outlaws. He has written about the Dalton and James gangs. One of the best stories in his collection "Nebraska" (1988) is "The Killers," an affecting portrait of a rotation of assassins. In his newest novel, "The Kid," Hansen returns to the ungovernable territories of the American West to resurrect, and perhaps redefine, one of the 19th century's most wanted men, the many-monikered youth known to most of us as Billy the Kid. William Henry McCarty was born in New York City in 1859, the son of a striving mother and an ill-fated father who died at Chickamauga. He was killed on July 14, 1881, in Fort Sumner, N.M., by his friend-turned-nemesis Pat Garrett. What happened during the years between has been the source of much speculation and cultural incantation. Was Billy ambushed? Was his murderous reputation deserved? Did he, in fact, die in Fort Sumner or somehow survive thanks to Garrett's residual affection? The films and biographies have had their say. Now comes Hansen, one of our most supple novelists, to tell the Kid's very good and tangled story in a spry and inventive way. Hansen has an abiding interest in the tension between a historical figure's publicized persona and the private, unadorned self. Who are these infamous souls? What allows them to sidle across the boundaries of taboo? Why are we forever drawn toward their burning flames? A skilled researcher, Hansen anchors his book in the dark waters of character. The Kid's story has been told many times. But not like this. Hansen's Kid is "ever smiling, witty, and genial when not riled by an injustice." He can be a "hot-tempered boy" but is memorable for his genteel manners. He fires guns with uncanny accuracy; that same physical deftness makes him a smoothly efficient horse thief and a prodigious dancer. Women are charmed by him. Sallie Chisum, niece of a friend, coyly quotes Shakespeare soon after she meets Billy: "What's to come is still unsure: / In delay there lies no plenty; / Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty." After Sallie there is a long line of girlfriends and queridas. They rarely fault Billy for his crimes. And they never betray him. In Hansen's reconsideration, the Kid is a mostly admirable wild child who seeks a stable family. Although sometimes overwhelmed by "heedlessness, overconfidence and pluck," he is stoutly loyal and never cruel. When his beloved employer is ambushed, he vows - and exacts - revenge . But the political roots of what came to be known as the Lincoln County War are knotty and putrid with corruption. "Those seeking commerce and prosperity for New Mexico" want freelancers eliminated. Billy is involved in many a violent act, but "exaggeration, outrage and garish lies" embroider his exploits until he becomes a literal and figurative target. Only in his last days does he kill an unsuspecting man - and that deed costs him plenty. Still, despite being an accomplished escape artist and an orphan from the age of 14, he chooses not to flee the place he now calls home. He hides in plain sight among his many friends, awaiting the circling vulture of Pat Garrett, hoping not "to die alone." So what does Hansen tell us about William Henry McCarty that we didn't already know? The real achievement of this novel is its pesky style. Like the Kid, Hansen revels in the lingo of tabloid and tale, of dime novel and detective story. He also highlights the haphazard nature of our fates. Some of the Kid's rowdy peers find early graves. Others go on to ironic respectability, burying their colorful pasts with their old hats and boots. The West has always been a vortex of transformation. Only the Kid remains forever young and misunderstood. 'Exaggeration, outrage and garish lies' embroider the feats of this novel's Billy the Kid. ALYSON HAGY'S latest novel, "Scribe," will be published next year.
Library Journal Review
As an American icon, Billy the Kid looms large in the collective imagination-a horse-stealing, gunslinging outlaw whose life has spawned copious amounts of fiction. Hansen (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) treats us to a detailed yet compellingly readable fictional biography of William Henry McCarty. Charming and deadly, Billy tried to live life on the straight and narrow but was drawn into horse thievery after his beloved mother died. Alternating between stints as a ranch hand and gang member, Billy spent time in jail, honed his sharpshooting skills, and progressed to more serious crimes. At the time of his death, Billy was the New Mexico Territory's most wanted, and notorious, outlaw. Verdict From Billy's parents, to the women he wooed, to his final shootout, Hansen's work provides a rich tapestry of this outlaw's life and compatriots. The digressions into the stories of the supporting characters detract a bit from the forward momentum, but, ultimately, this is an evenhanded literary portrait.-Sarah Cohn, Manhattan Coll. Lib., Bronx, NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.