Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Intriguing. Great history and personal outlook., October 7, 2007
I was glued to this book. I even read all of the research notes. This was truly a remarkable work of history and a great perspective on an event that has been over dramatized and blown out of such proportion by Hollywood.
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30 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Criticism & Controversy, November 2, 2004
This is a highly controversial book, though as many reviewers before me have noted; it's hard to tell why. Review readers influenced by such stale criticisms as that the author faked his research (criticisms without a basis in fact) should read the above publisher's statement about what the book is. It traces the genesis of such unjustified criticisms.
At the time the book was released, it was correctly recognized by the Univ. of Arizona. Press as the most heavily documented book of the kind they had ever published. This has not changed. Further, the major documentary sources of the book are all in the special collections of Univ. of Arizona library.
This book is exactly what it appears to be - a memoir of a remarkable frontier woman who, moreover, was the mistress of the leaders on both sides of an unparalleled feud that led to widespread bloodshed in southeastern Arizona. She was, in fact, as the author comments, a sort of Helen of Troy of Tombstone in that her defection from the sheriff to Wyatt Earp was responsible for the sheriff's frantic efforts to even the score by trying to railroad the Earps to prison or the gallows for the public service they performed, known today as the gunfight at the o.k. corral. He did not succeed.
He did succeed in hounding them out of the territory, however, which seems to have founded an M.O. that many subsequent sheriffs have followed. Sheriff john slaughter appointed himself judge, jury and executioner and bad guys fled, sheriff harry wheeler, ran thousands of union men out of the county, a recent sheriff, with somewhat more justice, frightened a troublemaking religious sect out of the county.
By any measure, Josie Earp's memoir is worth reading. As to the criticism that she didn't write it, most subjects of memoirs do not write them personally, but have the assistance of someone with writing ability who is familiar with their story, such as a relative or close friend. In this case, Glenn Boyer finalized the work he took it over an unfinished work from two earlier amanuenses and vastly enriched it with superior resources and knowledge. They were distant relatives of Josie Earp. He was an intimate of the Earp family and fully qualified to do what he did - rewrite several less-than-professional sources and merge them into a first person delivery to make them saleable, and he did it on professional advice.
So what's to criticize if he rewrote as necessary if that's par for the course? Well, for one thing the author, Boyer, kicked a lot of literary thieves in the back pockets of their Levi's and they aren't taking it very well. And why did he do it? As premier Earp premieer, lee Silva, has said: "we wouldn't know much about Wyatt Earp without the research of Glenn Boyer." And that was the rub. A lot of Johnny come latelies appropriated that research for their own work without due credit, which is why they got kicked where they needed it most.
I note that the criticism doesn't hurt sales. This book was rated 17,000 this morning. Not bad 28 years after it was released by a university press.
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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible Insight, May 8, 2001
"I Married Wyatt Earp" is not for those who are looking for a "shoot 'em up" historical biography. In fact the famed O.K. Corral gunfight is just a small portion of this book. However, if you are looking for incredible insight to what made Wyatt tick, what made Josie tick, what life was like during their era, and a very easy read then this is the book for you! Mr. Boyer is the only "historian/novelist" to have actually vistied with and received his information from the Earp family and friends as well as Josephine's family. This gives him an incredible edge over other so-called Earp historians and that is why anyone interested in the Earps needs to read this book and any other book in which Mr. Boyer graces us with.
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