Customer Reviews

Alias Billy the Kid: The Man Behind the Legend (Western Legacy Series)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Donal Cline clearly demonstrates his inability to distinguish fact from fiction. I find his book to be biased (towards the Murphy-Dolan faction), poorly researched (claiming that Billy the Kid was known as Michael McCarty), and his findings to be very questionable (presents evidence without veryfiable sources.)After reading this book I asked myself why did Cline write this book? He seems to not think to much of "Billy the Kid" so why write a book about him? Why not stick to your true passion and write a documentary about James Dolan and L.G. Murphy.

From having him grow up a Manhattan gangster to including false photos the author shows an astonishing lack of historical research, especially for a man who has supposedly "spent more than thirty-five years studying the life and times of Billy the Kid." Included is just about every myth ever made up about the Kid with a few new ones thrown in. His sources? Most of these stories don't list any which is funny considering how many professionals have written biographies on him without reporting these. The sources he does list seem pretty disreputable too. He blatantly dismisses the accounts of the people who knew him. There is one page where he lists five accounts of Billy as a boy told by people who knew him and dismisses them all as biased. Not one subject agrees with him except, apparently, the ones who were never interviewed and can't refute him.

His evidence that Billy stayed in New York City until he was fourteen and even committed a crime there is based entirely on the ill-kept census records of the time. There were thousands of McCarty's throughout the country and proving one of them to be the Kid is by now impossible. (Astonishingly enough he uses that same argument to prove that it couldn't possibly be the right McCarty family listed in Indianapolis as is the accepted history) He even has to change his and his mother's name to make it better fit his theory having her die before the record has her show up in Silver City.

Based upon this flimsy evidence he makes up a complete back-story. He even has him travel all the way back to New York from New Mexico simply so that he can tie him in with a murder there before rushing back to New Mexico again. Again it requires major stretching of the dates and a name change to attribute this to the Kid. If Billy had ever gone by the name of Michael, been 3-4 years older, worked as a tinsmith at any point, and never left New York City then this might seem a more plausible theory. All the newspaper article says is that Michael McCarty aged 20 killed a friend with a knife. No further proof that it is the same person as Billy is listed nor even exists. As he himself states, McCarty is not exactly an uncommon name.

This whole book, while fascinating, seems more a work of fiction than of fact. I'd recommend it as that if it weren't so boring and confusingly written. No doubt to hide the lack of any real substance. A real shame.

This book is the most accurate that I have read concerning the earlier years of Billy, Starting with the arrival of his mother in New York City, fleeing the Irish Potato famine. I would recommend reading this important book along with the Billy book writen by Robert Utley, "Billy the Kid, A Short and Violent Life."