#tom clavin

[book-book-inglenook]

A very bookish Christmas

[aces-and-blackberry-blossoms]

Wild Bill, by Tom Clavin

This one has been sitting in my library for a while just because I like the author. I’ve never been all that interested in Wild Bill, not sure why.It was pretty interesting,  I didn’t know that Hickock was a union spy during the Civil War. In fact, I had never considered spying during the Civil War, and this has me thinking that something like that would make a  damn good story.The fact that the…

[darklingichor]

Wild Bill, by Tom Clavin

This one has been sitting in my library for a while just because I like the author. I've never been all that interested in Wild Bill, not sure why.

It was pretty interesting, I didn't know that Hickock was a union spy during the Civil War. In fact, I had never considered spying during the Civil War, and this has me thinking that something like that would make a damn good story.

The fact that the love of Bill's life was Agnes Lake, the owner and operator of a circus, and not Calamity Jane was another thing I didn't know. In fact he found Clamity Jane obnoxious.

The best part of the book for me was when his time portraying himself in a play was detailed. He found acting to be ridiculous in general , and the play itself, while successful because of his and Bill Cody's presence, and poorly written. It made money, but Hickock did not enjoy his time on the stage and would play pranks and cause trouble during the production to make things interesting!

I didn't find this story as interesting as the stories about Dodge City and Tombstone, but it was worth the read.

[antiquealien]

Dodge City

A man was traveling on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad in the 1870s when the conductor asked him where he was going. The man despondently said "To hell, most likely" to which the conductor responded "That's two dollars, and get off at Dodge City." (Clavin, 113)

--An apocryphal story from the 1870s about Dodge City.

Clavin, T. Dodge City St. Martin's Press, New York, N.Y., 2017

[darklingichor]

Bandit Heaven, by Tom Clavin

I love this author so much! And in this one he is talking about Butch and Sundance, among others.

As always with Clavin's books I just end up a wash in the stories and don't come away with a lot of details, but this time I can say one thing.

A couple of years ago I read a biography of Butch Cassidy where the author seemed to have barely contained contempt for both the subject and the setting.

Clavin did cite this book more than a few times, but the overall story was told with much less judgement.

Clavin in my opinion, knows how to write about history in the right way. Yes of course there is going to be speculation, but the point is to tell the story. Of course the bandits that used Hole-in-the-Wall were criminals, of course what they did wasn't right. These are givens. The book by Charles Leersen expended a lot of energy trying to convince the reader that Butch wasn't a hero. The reader *knows* this going in. He was an outlaw, he never tried to be a hero except for the fact that he really tried to never hurt anyone. Leersen (in between whining about the movie which is, you know, fiction) is using his book to yell at the reader that we shouldn't like the guy he wrote the book about, it doesn't matter if, in general he was a likeable guy, he was a criminal so shame on you for even wanting to read about him!

Clavin doesn't do this. He respects the reader, trusts that we know right from wrong and just tells the stories.

And they are interesting. The fact that Butch really didn't understand all the fuss around him. He felt that what he did was so small in the grand scheme of things that surely the law had better things to do than chase him.

I really liked the focus on both the outlaws and the law men in this book and the fact that the author hangs a lantern on one of the biggest mysteries in the wild west history.

Etta Place, long time girlfriend of The Sundance Kid. Who was she before joining up with outlaws? Where did she go when she left the pair in South America? We just don't know, and damn if that isn't interesting.

[nevinslibrary]

Totally Random Non-Fiction Tuesday

I had to pick up this book and give it a try because of the title. When I saw it in the stacks I was like, ‘wait… lucky, followed by 666… really?’.

Most of the info that I found in this book was new to me. It’s about Jay Zeamer and Joe Sarnoski and their crew. Their missions are usually reconnaissance ones over the enemy, and, apparently they were also involved in the longest dogfight in World War II in 1943, their old plane and misfit crew against Japanese Zeros. (The 666 comes from their name from the plane that they rebuild (a B-17) they call Old 666.)

This was an intense book, perhaps partially because the book doesn’t have a totally happy ending (they do win the dogfight, but, only one of the crew makes it home), and, also, the author is just so vivid in his prose. Phew… a tiring book to read, but, only in the best way.

You may like this book If you Liked: Luck of the Draw by Frank D. Murphy, Damn Lucky by Kevin Maurer, or Above the Reich by Colin D. Heaton

Lucky 666: The Impossible Mission That Changed the War in the Pacific by Bob Drury

[aces-and-blackberry-blossoms]

The Last Outlaws, by Tom Clavin

Another campfire story! I adore this author and his storytelling approach to history!This one is about The Dalton Gang, a group of outlaws made up of the Dalton Brothers and a few others. It details the lives of the brothers, three of them (Bob, Gratt, and Emmett) and their exploits with the gang and the final bank job that left Bob and Gratt dead, Emmett wounded and jailed, and oldest brother…

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[darklingichor]

The Last Outlaws, by Tom Clavin

Another campfire story! I adore this author and his storytelling approach to history!

This one is about The Dalton Gang, a group of outlaws made up of the Dalton Brothers and a few others. It details the lives of the brothers, three of them (Bob, Gratt, and Emmett) and their exploits with the gang and the final bank job that left Bob and Gratt dead, Emmett wounded and jailed, and oldest brother Bill, up till that point only involved in hiding his brothers, turning to a life of crime. The story also fills in the lives of the law men who hunted the Daltons.

As always, the book brings history alive, but as always I get so lost in the story that I miss details. This is mostly because of the author's style it is sometimes nonlinear, jumping back and forth along the timeline, and he also goes into the interesting minutiae of even minor players, such as aliases, romantic entanglements, and family ties. All of this adds depth and color to the story, but it does end up feeling like I am awash in information. None of that matters, really as the book is very enjoyable.

It was odd for me, however because I kept thinking of two other stories.

First, there were a fair few parallels between the Dalton's antics and the Butch and Sundance movie. This could have been because William Goldman might have cherrypicked different things from different gangs that made a good story, or it could be that there are only so many ways to rob trains and banks, and Butch and Sundance and The Daltons has similar stories.

The second thing I kept thinking about was the old cartoon The Good, The Bad, and the Huckleberry Hound. I watched it a lot as a kid and the bad guys were the Dalton Brothers (Dinky, Finky, Pinky, and Stinky). So I flipped back and forth between picturing Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and Hanna-Barbara characters.

All in all, a good read!