American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett [Hardcover]

Buddy Levy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 2005

The new popular biography of one of America's most enduring symbols of the Old West.


David Crockett was an adventurer, a pioneer, and a tragic hero who died at the Alamo. But the life of the real Crockett has been largely obscured and overshadowed by his mythology, turning this honest, unassuming backwoodsman into a larger-than-life, Disney-fied character in a coonskin cap.

In his short but distinguished lifetime, Crockett became America's original celebrity, frequently written about in newspapers and becoming an integral part of the folklore of his day. Opportunistic and clever, and presciently media-savvy, Crockett parlayed his humble origins to his advantage, using his charismatic frontiersman persona to win elections as a three-time U.S. Congressman and even a nomination as presidential candidate. The 1834 publication of his memoir, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett-by Himself, one of the first autobiographies of its kind, went through seven printings, and sent Crockett on the first-ever book tour across the Eastern seaboard.

At heart, Crockett was unassuming and down-to-earth, obstinate and independent to a fault. In a beautifully descriptive narrative, American Legend takes readers from Crockett's childhood hardships, near-death experiences, and meager education through his unlikely rise to Congress. Though his death at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, only added to his considerable fame and notoriety, the common David Crockett emerges here as never before: a rugged individual, an American original, and an enduring symbol of the American frontier.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Levy presents a sympathetic but unremarkable biography of the legendary frontiersman in colloquial if occasionally florid prose (an election loss "burned into Crockett like a brand searing a cow's flank"). Those whose image of Crockett was formed by the cultishly successful Disney treatment will find much that is familiar: the Indian fighter with Andrew Jackson, the congressmen from Tennessee and, finally, the Texas patriot who died defending the Alamo. But Levy (Echoes on Rimrock: In Pursuit of the Chukar Partridge) offers more (although not a lot more) in the way of background and complexity, and is willing to expose some of Crockett's deficiencies without making judgments: Crockett clearly indulged his wanderlust at the expense of his wife, a strong figure in her own right, and was, for a variety of reasons, an ineffective, bumbling politician. But despite his faults, readers will find Crockett likable and talented. In Levy's view, Crockett's abilities were expansive, and he opines that Crockett's bestselling 1834 autobiography "prefigures by some fifty years the literary genre of 'realism,' with nothing remotely like it" until Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And Crockett's falling out with President Jackson over, in part, Jackson's brutal Indian Removal Act of 1830 is to the frontiersman's credit. B&w illus. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Crockett was born in 1786 in Tennessee and died at the Alamo in 1836. In his brief lifetime, he became a folk hero, a three-time congressman, and a potential presidential contender. In this meticulously researched book, Levy chronicles Crockett's remarkable rise to fame. For most of the first half of his life, Crockett lived from day to day, driven by the barest necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. He married and then rented a small farm, and the couple had two sons and a daughter; his wife died from complications after their daughter's birth. He fought in the War of 1812 against Great Britain and later became a magistrate, the first step in his career in public life. In the end, as Levy has it, Crockett transcended the facts of his life to become an enduring symbol of possibility, remembered not for his deeds or his greatness, but for the tenacity of his spirit. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 339 pages
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons; First Edition edition (December 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399152784
• ISBN-13: 978-0399152788
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,137,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Buddy Levy is the author of the forthcoming River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana's Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon (Bantam Dell, 2011) and Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs (Bantam Dell, 2008), which was a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, 2009. His previous books include American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett (Putnam, 2005, Berkley Books, 2006); and Echoes On Rimrock: In Pursuit of the Chukar Partridge (Pruett, 1998). As a freelance journalist he has covered adventure sports and lifestyle/travel subjects around the world, including several Eco-Challenges and other adventure expeditions in Argentina, Borneo, Chile, Ecuador, Europe, Greenland, Peru, Morocco, and the Philippines. His magazine articles and essays have appeared in Backpacker, Big Sky Journal, Couloir, Discover, High Desert Journal, Poets & Writers, River Teeth, Ski, Trail Runner, Utne Reader, TV Guide, and VIA. He is clinical associate professor of English at Washington State University, and lives in northern Idaho with his wife Camie, his children Logan and Hunter, and his black Lab Dugan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, and more-than-adequate peek at a pioneer..., March 15, 2006

By 

William E. Adams (Midland, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett (Hardcover)

I liked this book. Despite the presence of numerous footnotes and a bibliography, it is a "popular" text rather than a "scholarly" one. I found it a quick and compelling read, but then I've been a Crockett fan since I was 11 back in 1955 (or was I a Fess Parker fan? No, it was Crockett, as it turns out.) I had not read any full-length bios of the man, although the recent book "Three Roads to the Alamo" deals extensively with Crockett, Jim Bowie and William B. Travis. I enjoyed Billy Bob Thornton's performance as Davy in the recent big-budget Alamo movie, and in fact, was one of the few who liked the film as a whole. If you saw that movie, you'll see a lot of Thornton in this book's depiction of Crockett. Davy comes off as a pretty decent man, consistently trying to live his principles in a tough life situation. Certainly, he seems more admirable overall than Bowie or Travis, although I was suprised to learn that Davy was even a slave-owner briefly, and sold one of the three slaves inherited by his second wife in order to pay his debts. Bowie, of course, was an active slave-trader, and Travis even brought his personal slave to the Alamo. But Crockett was brave throughout his life, broke throughout his life, uneducated but talented, likeable and outgoing, a political failure and yet a celebrity. He did not intend, upon traveling to Texas in late 1834, to end up dead at the Alamo. Once there, he had a couple of weeks during which he could have left. By choosing to remain, he became an enduring symbol of courage. If that kind of life appeals to you, spend a week or so reading "American Legend." You'll be glad you did.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars intriguing biography, December 31, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett (Hardcover)

For us boomers raised on the remarkable 1950s Disney production, AMERICAN LEGEND substantiates much of the Davy Crocket TV shows, but also augments it with insight into how much more complex a person the frontier legend was regardless of Buddy Ebson's summarizing ballad. Buddy Levy fills much of the gaps including mildly negative commentary. For instance, there is insight into Crockett's two wives, five children and four step-children in which the hero's itchy feet kept him on the road a lot; both his strong spouses took care of the home front with iron wills, but the hero was not home that often (regardless of offspring count). Interesting to this reviewer's memory of the Disney show has Mr. Crocket going to Washington as a success story, but the biographer paints a more balanced picture of a somewhat failed politician. However, the most interesting new items (at least to me) is Crockett wrote a bestselling autobiography in which he barnstormed the country selling it and his dispute with his former Commander in the Creek War President Jackson over the abusive Indian Removal Act of 1830. This is an intriguing look at an individual who in the first half of the nineteenth century was a living legend that authenticates how accurate the Disney portrayal was; one worth reading and the other worth watching

Harriet Klausner

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A legend in his time and ours, June 23, 2006

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Loves the View "Louise" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett (Hardcover)

Once you read this, you'll understand that Davy Crockett was not a man of much accomplishment. Like celebrities of today, he was famous for being famous. In fact, he was probably America's first media star.

It's amazing that there were so many bears in TN, maybe he killed them all. While he made his name as a hunter and woodsman, he tried a number of schemes, but was not a successful entrepreneur. He left his wife with children (his and theirs), drudge work and ever present debt while he turned his charm and his gregarious nature into a political career.

He was a one issue populist when he was elected to Congress, but couldn't get much movement on that issue. His fellow Tennesseean was President. Andrew Jackson, trying to build a following among the common men, should have been a supporter of squatters' rights to homestead (if this is an accurate summary of the concept). Crockett knew Jackson from the Indian Wars, and did not have much respect (but Crockett's war record is dubious... not to say Jackson's isn't either) for him. Levy touches on the rancour between these two men, but not much on their political differences. He does recount how Crockett is indulged by Biddle, Jackson's archenemy.

In the end Crockett, with a rifle, a gift of his rich friends, that he names for his wife, goes off to TX. He's a friend of Sam Houston who has inspired him about opportunities in what will surely be a US state. They both exhibit what we, today, might call alcoholic behavior. We know the end of this story.

I picked up this book, hoping to learn more about the Jackson era and I did, but not in the way I expected. There was almost nothing about the big issues of the day: Jackson's war on the bank/Biddle and slavery/abolishionism. This book, though, gives you a flavor for the frontier, and the emergence of an individual... who would never achieve acclaim in French salons or pre-Victorian (or pre-Beatles for that matter) England. Ben Franklin another early American autobiographer and celebrity, had a uniquely American persona that still could dazzle European courts. Europeans could understand Franklin.

But, Davy Crockett was too new... too flawed... too outrageously common... too proud of hunting to feed his family (& not for sport)... too accepting of his station (but willing to take risks to better his financial condition)... too unaware of/unconcered about dukes and earls... to be understood anywhere else in his time but in the fledging nation. He is and was truly an American original.