Customer Reviews

Masterson

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Don Chance

The legendary names of the Old West, the true legendary names and not phonies like Matt Dillon or Ben Cartwright, always seem to come in sets. Evidence suggests Jesse and Frank apparently knew Billy and Pat, and Pat once reportedly chased Butch and Sundance, and so on. I mean, the way the enduring names are found together so often, you'd think all those immortal lawmen and outlaws used to have sleep-overs at each other's houses. Makes a certain sense, too - those wide-open spaces of the Old West weren't all that heavily populated with white people until fairly late in the century. But "Masterson," a new speculative novel by Spur Award winner Richard S, Wheeler, explores the life, and especially the legend, of the one name seen most in association with the other famous western figures. Bat Masterson knew them all! Like Forrest Gump, Bartholomew (aka. William Barclay or "Bat") Masterson was present at, or personally knew most of the principles involved in, most of the notorious moments in the history of the western frontier. From his young participation with the other Adobe Wells defenders against Quanah Parker's Commanches, to his term as a tough lawman during Dodge City's wildest cowtown days, to his Tombstone adventures with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, to his final years as a New York City newspaper columnist with such sporting buddies Damon Runyon and Tex Rickard, Bat Masterson is as much a part of the Old West as traildust and the Pony Express. And, even though it's a fictional account of a cross-country trip that never happened, "Masterson" reflects the incredible life and times of this authentic historical icon. At the dawn of Prohibition, William Barclay Masterson is discouraged, depressed, and suffering with the alcohol-aggravated diabetes that would kill him just before his sixty-eighth birthday a year or so away. As another New York winter approaches, he is also trying to come to grips with his fierce and unshakeable "dime novel" reputation as a mankiller, having killed just one white man in his life and that in self-defense. Taking along his long-time common-law wife, Emma, a former vaudeville singer/dancer, Masterson departs on a quest in search of his legend with the intent of setting that legend straight. At their first stop in Dodge City, forty years after the town's turbulent beginnings, the aging couple is met with open hostility by a modern, progressive town desperate to bury its tempestuous past and uncivilized reputation. More determined than ever to root out the source of his infamy, Bat heads on toward friendlier territory in Trinidad, Colorado. San Diego, Los Angeles, Leadville, Pueblo, Denver. Bat Masterson never does lay his legend to rest, but he and Emma enjoy a fine old time trying. As well as telling a thoroughly entertaining yarn, Richard S. Wheeler has done an excellent job of research in pinning down one of the few men in history who saw it all. It's almost impossible to imagine how one man can go from the astoundingly primitive era of the 1880s buffalo hunter to the soft life of an 1900s urban newspaper personality and executive, but Wheeler makes it seem as natural for us as it must've seemed for the original subject. And his views on Masterson's famous and infamous contemporaries just feel right in light of everything known of those people (a disheartening lunch meeting with a suspicious and cynical Wyatt Earp and Josie Marcus in Los Angeles depicts that famous couple's hapless last days in a heart-rending way that makes more sense than most historically accepted accounts). Like I said, Bat Masterson was there - he knew them all. And that reason alone is why there is never enough new books on the man or the legend. It's not factual history, maybe, but Richard Wheeler's "Masterson" is one of those rare books I could read again even though I've just finished it.

It's a rare treat to walk through an actual person's mind in such a convincing book as "Masterson". I only knew of Bat Masterson as the foppish crime-solver from the TV series, and this Masterson is a much more human and plausible man. This is a Western hero I could believe in. It's a grand, sad journey he and his lady take in this book. His life, "past" and "present", and the historic settings through which he travels were obviously well researched. Are there any missteps here? Only Bat could tell us. I think it happened just as Wheeler says.

As far as Western's go this book by Richard Wheeler is not half bad. His historical fiction of Bat Masterson is for the most part a well written book. The only exception is his treatment of Wyatt Earp. It was the one low spot in an other wise fine book about a true Western Lawman "Bat" Masterson.

Richard Wheeler does creditable research on his main subject Masteson in the waining days of his life as a New York Reporter. He peoples his novel with very real people such as Louella Parsons. I found his charaters were fleshed out rather well for the most part, but found his charicature of Wyatt Earp who was very much a real friend of Bat Masterson less than honest. Wyatt was far better educated than portrayed. That aside, enjoy the book.

I loved this book. Few books, references, or TV shows ever really captured Bat this well.

Many stories about Bat and Jim (his brother) and of course the Earps have passed down through my family over the years.

Masterson's always have been gamblers and always will be (boxing, cards, you name it). This is brought out well in the book. Bat made many dollars "bucking the tiger."

Bat got to see Trains, Autos, and Planes all become a reality during his lifetime.

Much of the early - early years of Bat are not documented anywhere and therefore difficult for authors to really pen about those years.

The author does an excellent job of adding facts wherever possible.

Bat was a snappy dresser and a fine gent!

Thanks for the great job Mr. Wheeler.

This book isn't so much a real western as a trip down memory lane chronicled by Bat Masterson, legendary associate of lawman Wyatt Earp in Tombstone and Dodge City. The story is presented from the perspective of the 67-year-old Masterson, now having lived in New York City for twenty years, a few months before the advent of national Prohibition. He and his wife set off on a trip to his old haunts of 40 years before, and the book has much to say about the imminent arrival of Prohibition from the perspective of one who never saw it end. Visiting Dodge City in 1919, now a bone-dry, Bible thumping, and lemonade drinking farming center that has done its best to obliterate its legendary wild past, he is nearly run out of town by a police chief who accuses him (justifiably) of "illegally importing illegal booze" into Kansas.

The book drags in a few spots, but is endlessly fascinating for anyone who is fascinated by the stunning changes in American life, both social and technological, that took place during the late 19th to early 20th centuries.

The book drags in a few places but is endlessly fascinating for anyone who marvels at the stunning changes that

As an amateur student of the history of the American west, I found the perspective in "Masterson" most interesting. The story suggests, and probably rightly so, that the events that propelled the great western gunmen into notoriety meant little in the totality of western history and were of little or no significance in enhancing the rest of their lives. A thought provoking story.

"Masterson" is a sweet valentine of a book, not at all a conventional Western, though it starts out with that tone. "Well, hell, I guess it all started this way," says Masterson who is the speaker right to the end.

The old man, plagued by diabetes and a love of alcohol, is about to be greatly inconvenienced by Prohibition. He is getting close to the end, but he hasn't finished what the psychologist Erik Erikson called the seventh stage of life, coming to terms with the past. It's 1919 and he's working as a sports columnist (especially boxing, on which he was an expert) for the New York Morning Telegraph, where the Hollywood columnist is Hedda Hopper. Partly because of her interest, Bat decides to tour his past, literally, taking along Emma, who has become his life-companion through persistence and a sense of humor. No need for a stagecoach -- the railroad will do.

Dodge is shocked by his appearance, a demon from the past they are trying to deny. Another place is in love with the shootist they believe him to be. In Hollywood William Hart initiates Bat and Emma into the world of the silent Western, quickly casting them in an improvised movie that is little more than a child's game of "Let's play guns -- you be the bad guy and I'll..." In a dozen towns Bat goes to the scene of traumatic confrontations and finds them removed, boarded up, sunk into decrepitude. What kind of sense can he make of all this? Last century's news. Comforted by alcohol, Emma, and fairly dependable good meals, he is able to persist but not to sum it all up.

The couple zigzags thorugh the West visiting the personalities left from long ago -- though it wasn't that long, was it? You remember Hedda Hopper, don't you? At that time she was a bigger and more powerful force than Masterson, with only her typewriter to render the ratatatat. Baby Doe is an ascetic broke old woman. Wyatt Earp is a resentful paranoid old man, he and his wife fighting hard to keep up a front. Some are only headstones, and probably not the original ones at that. One newspaper man comes only to attack Masterson as a two-bit crook and killer; another comes with research to reveal that there are no known deaths except the first one, which was clearly self-defense, and though Bat made his living in the shadowy demi-monde of gambling and stage shows, he was never a keeper of whorehouses or a seller of drugs.

What's more important is Masterson's slow realization that A) he actually cares about being seen honestly and B) his best defender and ally has always been the woman he took for granted, Emma. And so, in Denver, a town he never liked, he does the right thing, and comes home ready for Erikson's eighth and final stage: Wisdom.

I really enjoyed this novel.I have read a lot of stuff on the Old West ;both fact[?] and fiction. As for fiction I like Longarm and Trailsman.However part of the fascination is trying to sort out which is which.The author takes a novel approach in trying to do this and produces a very readible and convincing book.The list of books at the end is appreciated;thanks.

Wheeler assumes Masterson's identity and writes a first-person account of a 1919 trip the old lawman, gambler and businessman might have taken out west to make sense of his life and legend.
The author seems to care very much about getting historical details right, which is important to me as I like to learn something about history when I read historical novels.
Masterson was, by 1919, a newspaper columnist living in New York City with his wife Emma. Wheeler has Masterson uneasy about the dichotomy between his legend and his real life and sends him back into the American West to reach some conclusion about how he would like to be remembered.
It's a fact-filled odyssey that takes Masterson to Dodge City, Trinidad, Los Angeles, Leadville and Denver (among other places). Along the way he reminisces about his life in the West, talks to Wyatt Earp, gets a bit part in a William S. Hart movie, discovers the result of a forgotten act of kindness in Denver and formally marries Emma (a rite they had somehow neglected oh those many years).
There's a touching scene when he visites the grave of Doc Holliday and hears that the long-dead dentist's widow has been paying to have flowers put on the grave every week for years. "God bless you, Big Nose Kate," he says to no one.
It's a masterful book, no pun intended, and I'm glad I read it. But it suffers from lack of a plot, which is why I'm giving it just three stars. I won't fault the author for that, however, as the whole premise mitigates against the use of a plot in the meaning that the term is generally accepted to have.
"Masterson" does exactly what historical fiction is supposed to do. It entertains and instructs simultaneously. I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in the reality of the American West but has trouble digesting non-fiction history books.

I loved this book. Few books, references, or TV shows ever really captured Bat this well.

Many stories about Bat and Jim (his brother) and of course the Earps have passed down through my family over the years.

Masterson's always have been gamblers and always will be (boxing, cards, you name it). This is brought out well in the book. Bat made many dollars "bucking the tiger."

Bat got to see Trains, Autos, and Planes all become a reality during his lifetime.

Much of the early - early years of Bat are not documented anywhere and therefore difficult for authors to really pen about those years.

The author does an excellent job of adding facts wherever possible.

Bat was a snappy dresser and a fine gent!

Thanks for the great job Mr. Wheeler.