Customer Reviews

Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is unquestionably the best-researched book on Bonnie and Clyde, especially since the author got access to 2 unpublished manuscripts by Bonnie's mother and sister. All you have to do is look at the notes in back to see all the research the author did. . . but more than that, it's a great story that grabs you a few pages in and doesn't let you go. It's VERY different from the movie, which was entertaining but had very little to do with the real story. The truth is even more fascinating. I had no idea that Clyde had been raped in jail, and his attacker was the first man he killed . . . or that Bonnie was a smart student who won writing contests in school. But they both were from a filthy West Dallas slum, and just like today, it's almost impossible to escape from your fate when the cards are stacked against you from the git-go. But they really did love each other, and in the last few chapters, when they're just barely evading the authorities and all shot up, you can't help but feel sympathy for these young killers. I know you shouldn't, but Guinn is such a good writer that you do. I loved this book.

I have no idea of how I stumbled across "Go Down Together", but I am certainly glad I did. While I enjoy mysteries and police procedurals, I don't consider myself to be a crime buff. My experience with Bonnie and Clyde was limited largely to the classic 1967 movie and bits and pieces that I had acquired here and there.

Guinn is very serious about his subjects, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. He fills 82 pages with notes, bibliography and acknowledgments. It was his good fortune that he secured access to two previously unpublished manuscripts by family members. Guinn acknowledges that the historical record of the infamous pair is incomplete and cluttered with lies, exaggerations, questionable recollections and much else that isn't true.

Clyde and Bonnie - the way the pair was known until the movie - were children of poverty. Though most impoverished kids made it out of their West Dallas slum neighborhood without robbing a corner grocery or killing someone, Clyde Barrow didn't. Petty thefts and stealing cars became a way of life for the poor boy and he was packed off to prison.

Texas wasn't a congenial state to the poor in the 1930s. (What state was?) The agricultural markets had collapsed followed by the financial markets and the economy as a whole. Social mobility wasn't what it is today: back then, if you were born poor, you generally stayed poor. Texas prisons were harsh environments and young Clyde Barrow was assigned to Eastham, a farm run from the notorious Huntsville prison. There he was continually raped by another prisoner. Clyde demonstrated his outlook on life by murdering the perpetrator.

Released from prison, Clyde put together a "gang" that was incredibly inept. Clyde and his successive "Barrow Gangs" never really achieved much success. But he had one person who never left his side: perky, would be poetess Bonnie Parker. Their relationship and dedication to each other is the real subject of this story.

Clyde was the boss of the "gang". Bonnie was his woman, always present, but never really a part of the actual commission of the crime. She didn't shoot anyone or even rob anyone.

Unlike the movie and many stories, Guinn shows there was little glamor in the lives of these fugitives, both of whom were in their early 20s. Much of the time, they slept in primitive camps, eating Vienna sausages from cans, often cold. They were constantly on the run, always with an eye out for police, of whom they killed several without much reason, other than Clyde's not wanting to go back to prison.

Clyde and Bonnie supported themselves largely through the gang's robberies of grocery and drug stores and gas stations. Occasionally the gang robbed a bank, usually without great financial success.

The Depression era media played up the exploits of Clyde and Bonnie because crime news was cheap entertainment and there was more than a hint of "Robin Hood" in the story of the poor kid from the slums striking back at the capitalist class. None of Clyde's gang was really making a social statement: crime was just how they made their living, though both Bonnie and Clyde basked in the publicity they received.

It was an era of gangsters. While Al Capone was perched at the top, bank robbers like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and others captured the attention of the nation, stoked by lurid, glamorizing stories in the press. Bonnie and Clyde wanted to be part of the upper echelon of crime, but they never rose above small-time criminal activities, no matter how much they were written about.

Guinn paints an intimate portrait of Clyde, Bonnie and their families,whom they were very close with. The unhappiness and despair of the Depression comes through as does the love of the respective mothers for their wayward children. Siblings of both Clyde and Bonnie spent time on the road with them. Clyde's brother, Buck, in fact, was a part of the gang and was the first to die.

There is much here. Guinn has done a first rate job of research not only into the lives of Clyde and Bonnie, but into the times, the West Dallas slums, the lawmen (using the term loosely) charged with protecting the public against criminals,the generally brutish society of the time in rural Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and other states where the gang operated.

Clyde and Bonnie eventually became too great a nuisance, having killed a bunch of police officers and a murderer with a badge was set on their trial. Frank Hamer was a sometimes Texas Ranger who had killed more than 50 men as a "lawman". Eventually with the help of a traitorous member of the Barrow Gang, Clyde and Bonnie met their end, perforated with bullets as a half-dozen lawmen ambushed them.

The story, told with greater historical accuracy than most accounts (though the author is quick to point out that the entire truth is hard to reach)is compelling. These two young kids captured the attention of the media and the populace in a two year crime spree. They weren't noble. They weren't victims of society. They were two young kids who decided to lead a life of crime because they wanted to.

It is a strange story, well told and infinitely interesting. The fatalism of 23 year old Bonnie Parker, crippled for the last year as the result of a car accident caused by the reckless driving of her lover Clyde Barrow, knowing that one day soon she would soon die with him is unnerving.

Jerry

I've got a pretty fair library on 1930s crime and this ranks right at the top. There are two things that stand out. First, it gets the facts right, as much as it is humanly possible to do so. And with Bonnie and Clyde, that's a great service, since their story was mythologized and fictionalized from day one. Second, and more unusual, is that the book places Bonnie and Clyde in their specific social and historical context. It doesn't just tell their story against the general background of the 1930s in America, but delivers an up-close look at what it meant to be poor and uneducated in West Dallas, the grim slum (almost a shantytown) that they both lived in.

Guinn takes care not to excuse their crimes, but I think his reading of their story is persuasive -- that they were two people from a doomed underclass who were unable to accept the long years of misery and deprivation that would ordinarily have been their fate.

He also does a good job of placing them in the context of 1930s crime -- yes, like John Dillinger they (at least occasionally) robbed banks, but they were worlds apart. Dillinger had access to a world of sophisticated criminal contacts. Many of his robberies were set-up jobs in which the banks were in on the deal. He had access to hideouts in "safe" towns like St. Paul and Hot Springs, connections to serious organized crime, doctors who could be trusted, and a whole network of highly experienced and capable confederates.

Bonnie and Clyde were just two kids from the very wrong side of the tracks. They had large and loyal families, but other than that, they were pretty much on their own. They didn't know any crime kingpins, they didn't have entree to the world of "safe" cities, and they had to select their confederates from Clyde's jailhouse buddies and kids from their West Dallas neighborhood -- most of whom knew as little about crime as they did.

I didn't end up rooting for Bonnie and Clyde -- they lived horribly destructive lives punctuated by murders that ultimately resulted from their own lack of sophistication (Guinn argues, fairly convincingly, that they killed mainly when cornered, but they sure got cornered a lot). The book did give me a sense of who they were as people, though, and gave me some empathy for them. They weren't stupid and they weren't crazy "thrill killers." I guess you could say their whole lives, in a way, were a response to being cornered by their poverty and marginality.

Guinn also provides a great portrait of what Dallas and the American middle South were like in the 1930s. Wild and woolly. It was a much more loosely knit society in many ways. It was a world where the cops would stop chasing you at the state line (and sometimes even the county line), and where you could give a different phony name every time you got arrested and who would know...?

Guinn's research, which included access to some unpublished family memoirs, really allowed him to turn two crime icons into two human figures. I knew who Bonnie and Clyde were before reading this book, but now I feel like I have a good sense of what they were like as people.

Even though I've always been interested in U.S. crime, especially during the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, for some reason I've never had more than a passing interest in Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Simply because so much material has been published about this murderous duo, however, I have read a number of books about them. I can state in all honesty that "Go Down Together" has to be the single most in-depth study of these two outlaws written to date. Every crime attributed to this pair is closely examined, evaluated and supported by historical data - official police and/or FBI files, interviews, newspaper clippings, and manuscripts (some of which were unpublished) of criminal associates and family members. This is an extremely accurate, objective narrative of two youths from the wrong side of the tracks who blasted their way into infamy during the early Thirties. Again, I'm not a Bonnie and Clyde buff, but if you are, this book is definitely something you will want to read.

I have studied B and C for more than 25 years and this book is hands down the best on the subject. Engagingly written, well-researched, and chock full of surprises for anyone who thinks they know the real story of these two Texas misfits.

I had never read a biography of Bonnie and Clyde before. I just knew, or thought I knew, who they were. In this excellent book, the author recounts not only the lives and times of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, which are of course the main focus, but also of their parents, siblings, friends and partners-in-crime. He does a superb job of setting the scene - Great Depression, Dust Bowl - and shows how, for so many people, hard work often did not suffice to earn them even a meager living during these hard times, let alone raise a family. The author relates how Clyde and Bonnie grew up, met, and how they wound up in a life of crime together. Their qualities and shortcomings are also well portrayed, e.g., generosity towards loved ones, devotion towards faithful friends, compassion for those working hard to survive, obsession with fairness, their love and respect for one another and, of course, Clyde's reflex to shoot anyone who shot at him first (Bonnie never hurt anyone). Eventually, the reader gets to be fond of these charming, colorful villains, which makes it all the more sad to read about the inevitable - how they died together. The writing style is clear, friendly, authoritative, widely accessible and incredibly engaging. When there is some uncertainty or controversy about certain dates, places or events, the author does not hesitate to point this out. Amply referenced with almost sixty pages of endnotes and a full bibliography, this thrilling page-turner can be enjoyed by anyone.

"A couple of kids stealing grocery money" was Dillinger's comment on Bonnie and Clyde: Pretty Boy Floyd was similarly dismissive. What we've seen in the movie is a long way from the truth. Guinn narrates a perceptive and well-told story about the pair of outlaws. You'll find that Clyde ran the show: Bonnie, for the last year of her life couldn't even walk, due to the crippling effects of a bad car accident: she had to be carried around. Clyde had been driving along a dirt road at night, doing 70mph (your 6-volt systems back then produced nowhere near as much light as the 12-volt systems in today's cars)--ran through a barricade and off the road where a bridge was down. Pure recklessness on Clyde's part--a recklessness and carelessness that cost Bonnie the ability to walk, and cost the lives of many people, including Bonnie and Clyde themselves.

Clyde was a skilled driver--he rarely drove anything except his favored Ford V-8--and car thief, but he didn't know when to take his foot off the gas. He liked fast cars and flashy clothes--the trappings of glamor. But the careful thought and planning that helped Dillinger and others was lacking--Guinn describes how the gang would drive into a small town in their Ford, wearing flashy clothes, and walk about casing the different stores for possible robbery: again and again, this aroused suspicions--it was if they wanted to call attention to themselves. They robbed some banks--the maximum haul that I recall from the book was under $4000--but spent much more time robbing grocery stores for $40 or so, and often grabbing for loose change. The book describes how Clyde stole a Ford V-8, drove it for a distance, and abandoned it for another Ford V-8, but switched the license plate to the newly-stolen vehicle: when suspicions were aroused, the license plate quickly was traced to the original stolen car. The gang also liked taking pictures of themselves, and the pictures sometimes showed the license plates of the car they were driving--not smart!

Frank Hamer, the legendary Texas Ranger, was finally hired to track down the gang. His posse ambushed Bonnie and Clyde in Louisiana, with Hamer repeatedly shooting Bonnie. The aftermath did nobody credit: the Barrow family wanted all the guns, which were all stolen or (rarely) bought with stolen money. Hamer kept these to auction off. Bienville Parish sheriff Jordan, part of Hamer's ambush team, may have grabbed a suitcase full of money for himself: he wanted the bullet-pierced death car to auction off. The car's owner (it was, of course, stolen) wanted it, and in a court case a federal judge returned it to the owner, who rented it out to what might best be termed an "exhibitionist" who charged admission for people to see it.

The title of the book comes from one of Bonnie's poems. There are occasional errors--such as accepting the FBI's line that Pretty Boy Floyd was involved in the Kansas City Massacre (see, for example, Robert Unger's book)--but nothing major. So--a well-done and interesting look at Bonnie and Clyde.

This book is a marvel--it is meticulously researched and so masterfully written that I emerged from it feeling as if most of what I had previously known about Bonnie & Clyde had been spun spun into practical meaninglessness. Without glorifying them in the slightest, he allows them them full humanity, which makes their story all the more appalling. This is the kind of work that is dangerous to read...nothing about the story is uplifting or cheerful; it's one of the more sordid, utterly discouraging tales of American life. And this writer captures the pathos of their lives so vividly that sorrow just seeps into your bones and lingers awhile. I paid a price for reading it--really, it stuck in my head for days--but after the spell lifted, I didn't mind the expenditure at all. Good reading deserves its due.

Do NOT buy Go Down Together by Jeff Guinn UNLESS:
1. You have sufficient time to read it cover to cover;
2. You want to learn more about the life of Clyde and Bonnie;
3. AND, you would like to understand what historically (most likely) happened.

Maybe it's just me, but this book is so well put together and backed up by the best available sources that I finally get it.

I bought it after reading about Frank Hamer and just could not put it down. There is no way that anyone other than Clyde and Bonnie could say what actually happened, but this author seems to have gathered enough detail to present to the reader a comprehensive representation of the most likely chain of events in a way that at the end you feel like you have just watched a movie.

I think someone said earlier that it does not excuse or justify the behavior, motive, or actions of any of the parties involved and I would have to agree.

Well done, Mr. Guinn.

It does circle back to a desire to learn more about the life of Frank Hamer. But thats another story, isn't it.

A very engaging and fast telling of the the real Clyde and Bonnie. From this account the two come off as a couple of silly, hick kids living a pathetic life on the run. Unfortunately, they ruined many other lives along the way. Sometimes conversations and thoughts are reconstructed, useful to keep the narrative engaging, but some times off-putting. Still, a great book about two of the most notorious criminals of the early 20th century.