Customer Reviews

Lucky Billy

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Lucky Billy tells us, once again, of the legend that was Billy The Kid. Orphaned at 14, Billy's next seven years were filled with wandering and carousing, some of it done with Pat Garrett the man who would eventually kill him.

Enamoured with the Mexican culture of the Southwest, Billy was fluent in Spanish as well as English and became a hero of sorts to the Hispanic community of New Mexico, who saw him as a defender or the poor and vanquished (a Robin Hood of the old west?)

Vernon explains that the turning point in Billy's short life was the Lincoln County War, (the U.S. version of the conflict between the English and Irish that had been going on in Europe for years), a dispute that ended in murder and revenge killings and earned Billy his reputation as a hired gun.

This Billy is more lost little boy than man. His escapades appear to those of a wild teen-ager turned loose with no adult supervision than the actions of a brutal killer.

I found this book to be a little dry in places with certain aspects of the Billy character rather flat and uninteresting. Perhaps the fact that I had recently read Larry McMurtry's Telegraph Days (in which Billy made a brief appearance) contributed to this feeling. McMurtry's characters literally ooze personality, a feature which Vernon's Billy is sadly lacking. This experience was more like reading a history book than a novel.

John Vernon, the author, has obviously done extensive research on the Wild West, the Lincoln County Wars, and the Kid himself; but I suppose it was the presentation of the material and the "telling" of the Billy the Kid story that failed to pull me into the story and keep me interested. I will admit that my knowledge of Billy the Kid was extremely limited and I chose this book via the Amazon Vine Program in an effort to gain a better understanding of the man and the circumstances surrounding his life and death. Unfortunately, I had to resort to Wikipedia and other sources to better understand the players and context of the passages/chapters. Doing so helped me understand the complex and overlapping backgrounds of the numerous characters introduced via epistolary text and elongated passages of dialogue from differing characters. This style may work well for some, but not so much for me. I gleaned over sections to pull what I needed from the story to keep it moving.

Having read the back cover and the author's accolades, I was really excited about the book. However, after the first few chapters, I realized it was not engaging, nor what I expected (which is fine, I like surprises); but by the time I completed it, I was disappointed with the offering -- I really wanted to enjoy the book much more but it fell short -- largely in the author's choice of "how" to tell The Kid's story. This could have been a very compelling story...it was not.

Having read novels and scholarly accounts of the settling of the American southwest, I was looking forward to what was described as "provocative picture of the west" and a "fresh nuanced portrait of this outlaw's dramatic and violent life". The book did not deliver. Mr. Vernon obviously knows his historical material but was not successful in transforming it into a readable novel; surprising for a teacher of creative writing. The narrated sections were not bad but the multiple, lengthy and stilted dialogues made for a laborious read. If you have a love for words, you will enjoy the arcane vocabulary but if you are looking for a historical novel that is both accurate and engaging, there are better out there.

In his novel "Lucky Billy" author John Vernon has brought us a historical novel centered on outlaw Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War.

The historical novel is a difficult genre, because the book generally has to conform to known facts; you can't write a novel about the Titanic and have it survive the iceberg, for instance.

Vernon's task is more difficult because Billy the Kid has been the topic of so many books and movies that his profile as a subject is very high. As a history and Old West aficionado I'm very familiar not only with Billy's history, but with the extant body of work already out there.

Because of that, I probably didn't enjoy this work as much as others may who come to it without that background. This was really pretty much a rehash of old material with no new insights, though the history seemed pretty accurate. I did find myself at several points thinking, "yep, I remember that scene from Young Guns" (which was a surprisingly historically accurate movie in many respects) or some other work.

Vernon also mixed his styles, some chapters being extremely expository (Pat Garrett TELLING how he did some things; Tunstall's annoying letters to his family TELLING then things he'd done), while most are in a more traditional narrative format. This detracted from the flow of the story, as well as making the classic mistake of TELLING rather than SHOWING key parts of the story. Vernon also shows a tendency to occasionally wander off on tangents, spending two pages describing some irrelevant thoughts a character may be having while riding from one town to another, for instance; or a page or two trying to describe a desert landscape, often somewhat incoherently.

His style is workmanlike though uninspired. I didn't find any of the passages particularly memorable, but he managed to tell his story. Not particularly engaging, but not too bad.

So... three stars.

Quick to the point; if this book was non-fiction and not a fictitious tale of young Billy's life, its tedious story would have been more interesting to know we were learning some facts of his lifeline. Instead, as a novel, it carries little depth, no character development, and does little to introduce you to Billy's band of gunmen The Regulators.

I cannot be too critical, as I did not finish the book (which is a rare occurance for me), and maybe the end would merrit another star, but highly unlikely.

The story-telling was too sporatic to want to turn another page. This book does not grip you or make you want to continue reading. We all know the ending to Billy the Kid, so to tell a fictitious tale of his life the author must really entice us to turn the pages, something I did not find myself wanting to do.

It is frustrating to anticipate the arrival of a book that you just KNOW is going to be great only to find that it is, well..., not.

This book is presented as "a myth-busting novel about America's most infamous and beloved outlaw, Billy the Kid, from a critically acclaimed historical novelist". Well, I didn't see any myth-busting, rather a story, written as if it was witnessed by the writers with quotes and opinions thrown about thoughtlessly, carelessly. If Mr. Vernon is an "acclaimed historical novelist", we have some serious problems with who we acclaim when it comes to history. I love history, and history this is not. I love historical fiction, but it should be CLEARLY labeled as such otherwise it comes off as a book that appears to be a factual account.

The book is a mess.
The prologue carries the title 'tintype' (as in the type of photo), referencing the only surviving photo of Billy the Kid and it is an interesting introduction to the book; unfortunately, it remains the only interesting part of the book. It's perhaps more interesting that the majority of tintype photos were reversed images; you are seeing a mirror image of the object. This could have been used to some literary advantage; something along the lines of "this is what the Kid saw when he looked in the mirror", but, I didn't write it; just a thought.

This is historical fiction, based mainly on conjecture; who could know what Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, John Tunstall, District Attorneys, Deputies, or the like, thought or said; again, no big deal, were it labeled as historical fiction. The story contains no form, reason, logic or layout. I could not, even after a second read, truly understand what it was that took place in the first chapter, so I just trudged on. It was downhill from there. Roll back a few years to study what the author believes was the "crucial event of Billy's life", the Lincoln County War which resulted in the death of one of the men that apparently had a father-figure-like grip on Billy. This little skirmish, according to the author, played a part in Billy's life of lawlessness.

The entire book plays out in painful prose with stories that bog down the flow and conversations that are ridiculous, sounding like a cross between broken English and modern day ebonics, perhaps something in-between, but certainly not the lingo of the 19th century 'old west'. Some of the conversation make no sense at all. Mercilessly, the author returns us to the story of Billy's escape from jail in Lincoln in 3 more chapters, after the first chapter; same information, different 'angles'; an attempt to give different points-of-view, but it fails and comes off as redundant.

Placed throughout the book are letters from many of the people involved (authentic, I assumed) and articles from newspapers regarding Billy (again, authentic, I assumed). The book covers what is known of Billy, with a dry, unimpressive quality before humanely drawing to an end as the Kid faces off against Pat Garrett. This confrontation, takes place from Garrett's point-of-view (the book flip-flops like this throughout without warning or explanation). Garret painfully tells the tale with the same banal candor as the rest of the book.

And so we arrive at the Afterword, where the author explains that ONLY 2 of the characters in the work are his creation but all other characters are "based" on real historical figures. The following is stated; "based meaning I learned what I could about them from the historical record and extrapolated - but also invented - starting with that foundation". The author also offers that some of the "sentences and phrases" are borrowed, some of the letters "are based upon the actual letters", some dates are "altered", and some "fictional bridges" have been utilized. All of this after reading 290 pages. This "critically acclaimed historical novelist" even states that he has used "some of the language" in a portion of the book "from a passage in John Cleland's Fanny Hill". In fairness, there are, according to the afterward, some actual provisions from the historical record.

I don't think I have ever rated something 1 star but this, as advertised, would appear to be a historical work, and it is, on almost all accounts (the saving grace being the afterword), a work of fiction, very loosely based on some facts.

Very frustrating.

You may already know everything there is to know about Billy the Kid; after all, there is not that much you CAN know--the established facts of the Kid's brief life are few. And a lot of what people think they know derives from the many books (from Pat Garrett and Ash Upton, down through Walter Noble Burns, to Michael Ondaatje, and so on, down to Michael Wallis, and now John Vernon) and movies (way too many even to hint at) and songs and stories. Even a ballet. You name it. Google "Billy The Kid" and you get over 16M hits. Even Wyatt Earp rates only 1.2M and Custer 3.5M. Interpret this as you will, it still gives some idea of the degree of cultural penetration. The Kid's story has been told and embellished so many times that there may seem nothing left to wring from the meager fund of fact that the storyteller has to work with.

But that sort of idea does not take into account the talents of the writer who sets out to go where so many have gone before. Some writers are better than others, and some are danged good, and these latter excel at making new images out of old materials. So it is with John Vernon's newest, "Lucky Billy." Vernon sees things new and describes them in language that brings out the uniqueness and ordinariness of The Kid's life, of any life. He moves effortlessly between the known facts and uses language that is often stunning to bridge the significant gaps between them. The New Mexico landscape becomes, as it must in such a story, another character, at once the setting and the driver of action: distance, color, light, weather are all given their part. The people, who often in such tales degenerate into symbols, seem to live and breathe in this landscape.

In short, it is a fine accomplishment, so even if you think there is nothing left to learn about The Kid, you should take some time and acquaint yourself with this telling, probably the thousandth, of this story. It has seldom been told so well.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say at the outset that I read -- endured? -- only about 60 percent of this book. Therefore, I don't want to be unduly harsh, but I simply did not enjoy LUCKY BILLY. The narrative is disjointed, the result of multiple perspectives and chronological jumps that just don't cohere. I don't object to this post-modern style, but at least make it work. If the reader can't piece it together, then what's the point? That's the question I kept asking myself: what's the point? This story is legendary, well covered in print and on screen (in the opening "Hello, Bob," I heard echoes of YOUNG GUNS), so I was looking for what Vernon adds in his retelling. I'm not extraordinarily well versed in the topic, but I couldn't find much.

On a more technical level, Vernon doesn't seem to have much of an ear for dialogue, and although he occasionally offers some good descriptive prose ("the sun, cold as a pearl yet sharper than an ice pick"), much of the book reads like warmed-over Cormac McCarthy. Vernon's writing is evocative enough, but it lacks the grandeur (and flow) of McCarthy's, his sense of the elemental and the epic. More than once, Vernon conveys the violence of a gunfight by following a bullet and describing the damage it causes while ripping through a body. In addition to having the whiff of overwriting, this cold, clinical approach makes violence comprehensible yet otherworldly, foreign -- whereas McCarthy describes violence in ways that, though graphic, make it seem very much of this world, very much a part of ourselves. Perhaps this is an unfair comparison, but for "myth-busting" (as the back of the ARC puts it) takes on the American West, McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN is the standard as far as I'm concerned (though it doesn't deal with Billy the Kid). LUCKY BILLY falls well short of that mark.

I really wanted to enjoy this book but just couldn't get around the way the story was told. I enjoy the legend of Billy the Kid and was expecting something different with this book. I just couldn't get into the story.

I know that negative reviews are not well received, but I am obligated to be truthful here . . . .

I began this book, of course, with the Preface - which consists mostly of a mesmarizing analysis and history of the sole existing photograph of Billy the Kid. It was an exciting start and I felt I was in for a special reading treat. I was wrong.

The book is historical fiction, loosely based on historical fact and legend. I was annoyed by what seemed to be an interspersion of 21st century idioms that seemed out of place. Also, it appeared that in an attempt to be "gritty", the author inappropriately used profanity. (I consider well-constructed profanity to be a liguistic art form, which I indulge in too often). In this case it seemed contrived, often out of place, and gratuitous.

The story - did not stimulate the imagination. I found this interpretation of the Billy the Kid legend to be about the same that I have held since childhood. I found the minutia of "The Lincoln County Wars" to be uninteresting.

Kudos to the author for his research. A William Bonney scholar might want to check this out but -- I had to struggle to finish this one. Not a recommendation of mine.