Customer Reviews

Pat F. Garrett's the Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid

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Frederick Nolan is one of the most prolific living writers on the economic strife in Lincon County, New Mexico commonly known as "the War".

The Pat Garrett version of the War was almost entirely written by Roswell postmaster, Ash Upson, and was designed to improve Garrett's lot in the eyes of history as well as to further his political fortune. Consequently, Garrett's version has always been suspect amoung serious historical scholars although it is one of the most frequently quoted sources of "facts" related to the Kid. Garrett's seemingly singlehanded resolution of the problem by killing the Kid after the two primary proponents of the Regulator faction, John Henery Tunstall and Alexander McSween, were killed by members of the Murphy, Fritz and Dolan faction, is placed into historical prespective by Dolan's meticulous research and readable language..

Nolan's writing and research tracking the actual chronology of the War based on the Garrett version not only is designed to set the record straight historically; but also demonstrates the true facts giving rise to the War are at least as fascinating as the legends.

The Lincoln County War has been referred to as the largest civil insurrection in the history of the United States, reaching right into the halls of Congress and the White House.

Readers of Dolan's annotated responses to the Garrett version will appeal to serious history buffs and the casual reader of western history about one of the true legends of the old west.

Robert Beauvais

Frederick Nolan's annonations to Pat Garrett's famous book do an excellent job of debunking many of the oft-repeated myths about Billy the Kid. I especially like the fact that Nolan occasionally ranges beyond Garrett's book itself to discuss how these Billy the Kid myths have been portrayed by later books and films. His commentary also helps fill in some of the background details about the Lincoln County war. You should note that I said "details," however; if you've never read about the Lincoln County war, this work probably isn't the ideal introduction to that messy, complicated affair. Nolan mostly seems to assume his readers are already at least mildly acquainted with the major events, places and people involved in the Lincoln County war. I also sometimes found myself wishing Nolan had annonated a bit more extensively (there are some entire chapters -- albeit very short ones -- through which he offers no commentary). The book's layout, while reasonably clear and clean, sometimes leaves a bit to be desired, with Nolan's notes often falling on different pages than the original text he's commenting upon.

This book was written by a ghost writer for Pat Garrett and set the stage for future Billy the Kid authors. The book is fictionalized in many places in an attempt to make the book flow better and to make the book more interesting. But, since the book was co-authored by Garrett, succeeding authors used it as a reference thinking he knew the kid well. But, Garrett did not know Billy as well as he led people to believe. The really good things about the book are the areas talking about Garrett's own experiences. But, the reader needs to be careful and not believe everything they read in this book. It could hurt them when reading more factual accounts of Billy's life in the future.

The story of Billy the kid is always good. Here it is in the form the sheriff, who shot him, wants us to belive.
The book is a mix of dime-novel fantasies and fackts of the capture and killing of the kid.
It is funny to read how the kid apperes in to forms: the form of a boyish dime-novel hero and in a (more authentic) blurry form of af kid-warrior-criminal who is in over his head and with no real purpose in life.
Throughout the pages of the story the historican, Frederic Nolan, hints us in note-form any time the writers of the book forgets importen facts, exaggerates, is inaccurate or makes up events of pure fantasi. He also supply us with background knowledge on importens events that needs bigger understanding than the writers supply us with - thus putting the fackts wright and making the reader see, what details in the story the writers perhaps did'nt know, had misunderstood or wanted to conceal.
"The authentic life of Billy, the Kid" is not at all authentic, but it is written by a person who knew the kid first hand and had a big influence on his story. It is funny to read how he describes his own role - a role that right from the start has been surrounded with controversy.
Good entertaining reading. But not the most trustworthy biografy, if you want to know what really happend in the life of Billy the kid.

I would like to begin by telling you that this was a great action packed book. It was very exciting. What I enjoyed most about this book is how Billy is always getting into truble. When he isn't robbing a bank he is getting chased by indians. The only critism I have about the book is it makes Billy seem like a hero. Billy wasn't really a hero he was an outlaw.

The simple fact that there are so many other facts about the killing of Billy The Kid besides Garrett's story makes me wonder if he really killed The Kid at all. I really think that Garrett simply wanted the reward money for himself (which he was denied) and to use this event to help him further his political career. Seems to me it did not work since everything he did afterwards seemed to fail for him. Truthfully, I think we will never find out the truth except that Garrett will be remembered as the man who killed The kid by those who believe Garrett's story. I for one as with many other Historians think that Garrett's story is not totally truthful.