Customer Reviews

Custer, Terry, and Me

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ONCE AGAIN, GLENN BOYER, AUTHOR OF 'TOMBSTONE VENDETTA' AND 'THE' AKNOWLEDGED AUTHORITY ON THE EARP FAMILY, HAS RAISED THE BAR ON WESTERN STORIES.
"CUSTER TERRY AND ME" IS AN ABSORBING NARRATIVE OF EVENTS AND PERSONALITIES LEADING UP THE THE DEBACLE AT THE GREASY GRASS RIVER, AND CERTAINLY PRESENTS A VIEWPOINT WORTH PONDERING. FOR THE UNINFORMED, THERE ARE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON JUST WHAT DID HAPPEN AT THE LITTLE BIG HORN. WAS CUSTER A HERO OR AN EGOTISTICAL IDIOT? WAS MARCUS RENO A COWARD OR AN EFFICIENT OFFICER? DID CUSTER DIE ON THE HILL OF THE "LAST STAND" GUNS BLAZING, OR DID HE BUY IT DOWN ON THE RIVER? WHY DID HE ATTACK AN ENCAMPMENT OF THOUSANDS? TO US WESTERN HISTORY BUFFS, ALL THIS MATTERS. GLENN UPSETS THE CUSTER APPLECART BY OFFERING AN ALTERNATE, INTIMATE VIEW OF GENERALS CUSTER AND TERRY, AND THE EVENTS LEADING UP THE THE LITTLE BIG HORN FIGHT. THIS A BOOK TO BE READ IF YOU LIKE WESTERN HISTORY OR IF YOU DONT. GLENN BOYER BREATHES LIFE INTO HIS CHARACTERS AND HIS HISTORY. THIS IS A FINE WORK BY A FINE MAN. YOU MAY CONTACT THE PUBLISHER FOR MY INITIAL REVIEW, WHICH WAS SOMEWHAT PROFANE.

Worthy of considering about this book from the catalog of the leading Custer Bookseller and Publsher in the world, Richard Upton, who is himself a leading Custer authority and author:

"This is a historical novel by a master storyteller. A truly different slant which reveals a deep knowledge of the intricacies of the epic event. Even you Custer experts will be impressed by this one."

G.G.Boyer just keeps getting better and better. This is by far one of the best books I have read on the Custer story. Boyer knows his history and breathes life into the story surrounding the battle as seen through the eyes of his young narrator. It is not just the story of the battle, but much more. We meet the entire Custer clan. And the battle...well, it felt like I was there. Keep them coming Mr. Boyer!!

I thoroughly and completely enjoyed reading this book for two reasons. One: It was just plain fun, extremely readable and impossible to put down. Secondly, it was very thought provoking, providing a new and very logical twist to the Custer disaster. Boyer's use of of a first person "I was there" story teller is wonderful and believable, without being high handed or silly. And his use of "ghosts" to tie up loose ends is magnificent and a joy to watch unfold. A great read for both the history buff or the simple western fan. A classc. Jim Lockwood, Jr., Prescott, AZ

As usual G.G. Boyer has written another historical gem! Not only does he offer new insight to the Custer story, as he always does when writing about true people from the West, he writes this story in a very descriptive yet highly entertaining fashion. Couldn't put it down and I highly recommend this book.

G.G. Boyer has managed what might seem impossible: putting a thought-provoking new spin to the story of Custer and the Little Big Horn. And what a spin! Boyer is a noted historian as well as a widely published author of western fiction, and those two elements come together here to bring these people and their time to life. A classic of Americana that I'd highly recommend to the Custer buff and the general reader alike.

Mr. Boyer has woven a wonderful and exciting tale through time to tell the "true" story of what really happened at the Little Big Horn. Even readers nor particularly knowledgeable of this topic, or sympathetic toward Custer for that matter, will find great interest in this novel. While a work of fiction, Boyer, who painstakingly researches his subjects, has introduced plausible facts based on solid historical research and has turned devotees of the Custer Myth on their heads. Custer and other true-life characters are revealed as the human beings they were: their strengths, their weaknesses, their excesses, and their loves. Custer, Terry, and Me, is the result of a master storyteller thinking through the questions which history had left unresolved. Readers will be instantly taken by the richness of this story, matched against the frontier and the peoples who populated it.

With Custer and his fate the topic of a couple of hundred books currently in print, one might fairly ask, "Why another book on Custer?" The answer becomes evident within a very few pages of this book.

Young Tom Ballard is drawn into the midst of the Custer circle, and, through his eyes and experiences, Custer and his crowd (Terry, the Custer brothers, Reno, Benteen, and the rest) jump off the pages as genuine, if not always appealing, personalities. Moreover, even though the reader knows the inevitable outcome from the start, Ballard (i.e. Boyer) presents the reader with a new and plausible explanation of Custer's activities at the Little Big Horn on that that fateful June day.

In Custer, Terry and Me, G. G. Boyer unfolds an absorbing tale founded upon sound historical research. A one sit read, it would make a wonderful movie-highly recommended!!

I just finished reading Glenn Boyer's new book "Terry Custer and Me" I wrote him a message telling him my impression of his book and I include this message as my review of "Terry, Custer and Me"

Mr. Boyer, I just finished reading "Custer Terry and Me" and I must say it's one of your better works. Actually, it's the best of its kind that I've read. You made Tom Ballard come alive and you gave a human character to Custer that has never been done by anyone else as far as I can tell. You also gave a distinct personality to Buns (Tom's Ballard's horse) as only one who loves and has been around horses could possibly do. All horses have personalities and quirks as most humans but only a person who loves horses and respects them enough, would ever discover that.

Your story lends itself very well to the big screen (or at the very least a miniseries on the little screen). In either case it would be best if it were done on an epic scale with the detail you bring out in the book. Your explanation on the death of Custer as having happened very early on in the battle, is one that I had gleaned from the Native American accounts that I've heard over the years. I didn't realize that he was shot near or in the ford but I understood that he died in the very early minutes of the fighting and not the last man standing as always portrayed in the movies.

Mr. Boyer, any movie or TV producer who reads your book and neglects to come to you with a screen proposal in his hand would be making the biggest mistake of their professional life. "Terry Custer and Me" (even though it's not very long) has the making of a once and for all time, epic story in understandable detail, of exactly what went on at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. How you did that in so little words is beyond me but somehow you pulled it off.

As you did with Wyatt Earp in your book "I Married Wyatt Earp," you bring much truth and life to the story of Custer. You bring him to life as a real human being. A man of his times with not only some of his flaws as most dwell, on but also his good attributes which will remove the mistaken idea so many have, that he was more of a bumbling fool and egomaniac as usually portrayed on film. I've come away from your book with a new view of Custer and the way you bring him out in your book is much more plausible, makes more sense and answers a lot of questions that never added up to me before.

I being descendant (in part) from Native American stock through both of my parents, have never heard of Custer in any way that was good. My folks never had anything good to say about him and I just assumed that everything I read about him was true. Even when I heard and read the Native American explanation of his death it only made him smaller in my eyes.

Your book, "Terry Custer and Me," caused me begin to see Custer in a different light. I still refuse to put him an a pedestal as some do, but I no longer see him as a man driven only by a giant ego and ambition to become President at the cost of the lives and hardship of Native American people. I no longer see him as the utter fool it would have taken if he had actually led his men to certain death by foolishly ordering his men to charge into overwhelming numbers of enemy.

Not only did you make Custer more plausible and interesting, you also bring to life the other historic characters of that era. Men and women like Libbie Custer, Autie's brothers Tom and Boston, Terry, Reno, Benteen et al. I really felt as though I was part of the list of characters while reading your account of all the interactions between the players.

If I don't someday in the near future see your story "Terry Custer and Me" on the big screen or TV series I will be greatly disappointed! My suggestion to any would be producer who wants to make his mark in the business would be to get in touch with you quickly before someone else steals their thunder.

Bravo on Custer, Terry and Me!

Bill Evans

As is usually the case with the Western stories of G. G. , this book is obviously based on in-depth knowledge of his subject. Further, it cuts through the conflicting views, and there are hundreds of them, generally in two categories: Custerphiles and Custerphobes, and provides a basis of a rational middle ground.

's characters have been noted as so interesting one doesn't notice the plot, and may negate the need for one. These characters are certainly interesting, but the plot is strong as usual in 's books, and the reader will get a humanized take, conjectural of course, on many of the well-known names in Custeriana. In the process their surroundings are brought forward convincingly so that the reader feels he is there while meeting these characters in humanized guise for a change.

As the publisher notes on the dust jacket: "It's not easy to breathe life into a tale told many times before, yet that is precisely what has managed to do. Fear, folly, suspicion, terror and distrust combined to bring about this harvest of death [the Battle of the Little Big Horn]. It will be impossible to read this story and continue to think the same way about these events." [By which is meant, of course, if you have read much about Custer.]

Three readable maps, allegedly drawn by the narrator, [see below] that wonderfully clarify the strategy and tactics.

The story is narrated by an old man, now rich and retired, who as an orphan street urchin in St. Paul was run down by the buggy of Gen. Terry, who feels obliged to take care of the victim. As a result he becomes an intimate not only of the Terry household but meets the Custers and is figuratively adopted by the whole clan, whom he finds "entertaining as hell."

He is in at the kill and sees Custer shot off his horse, and presumably killed, but not in the fashion usually accepted. And, as he says, he's had some wonderful informants in telling his story. As an old fellow, before his fireplace at night dozing after few drinks, he is visited by Custer himself, who finally is allowed to tell his side of the story personally.

Magic realism? Of course! It's about time it came to the Custer Myth.