Pretty Boy Floyd [Hardcover]

Larry McMurtry (Author), Diana Ossana (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1995

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and his screenwriting partner present a fictionalized account of the life and times of gangster Charley "Pretty Boy" Floyd. 8 cassettes.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As plain and affecting as a Woody Guthrie ballad, this re-creation of the crooked career of the Depression-era desperado/folk hero is Pulitzer Prize-winner McMurtry's (Lonesome Dove) first collaborative effort; he and screenwriter Ossana originally wrote this story as a filmscript. In 1925, after foolishly paying with (ill-gotten) cash for a brand-new Studebaker and driving home to visit his teenage wife and infant son, 21-year-old Oklahoma farm boy Charles Arthur Floyd is arrested and imprisoned for armed robbery. Released after four years, Floyd loses his new job because he's an ex-con. Arrested twice for vagrancy, he returns to the outlaw life and meets rodeo rider-turned-bandit George Birdwell when both he and Floyd strut in to rob the same bank at the same time. The outlaws embark on a reckless spree marked by small-town heists and artless women until Floyd-captured and convicted but escaped-kills a deputy and Birdwell is shot dead by a bookkeeper during a bank robbery. Heading north, Floyd eventually becomes the quarry of legendary G-man Melvin Purvis. Told in homely prose that's perfectly wedded to its subject, this engaging tragicomic novel is as much a study of quiet desperation as of crime and punishment. 275,000 first printing; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

McMurtry (The Evening Star, LJ 6/1/92) and screenwriter Ossana initially wrote a screenplay based on the life of Pretty Boy Floyd and then decided to expand the story into a novel. The novel retains the tone of a script: it's heavy on dialog and has little character development. Pretty Boy Floyd took on the status of a folk hero in the 1920s, but here he comes across as a cartoon. He's a petty criminal out of control, surrounded by women who can't resist him and stupid accomplices. The women are mostly whores with hearts of gold or long-suffering wives, eager for a few special moments with their man. While this is certainly not McMurtry's best work, his reputation should elicit demand for this novel in public libraries. [Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates.]-Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., N.C.
--Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., N.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: San Val (July 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417718382
• ISBN-13: 978-1417718382
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,304,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Larry McMurtry is the author of twenty-nine novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove. His other works include two collections of essays, three memoirs, and more than thirty screenplays, including the coauthorship of Brokeback Mountain, for which he received an Academy Award. His most recent novel, When the Light Goes, is available from Simon & Schuster. He lives in Archer City, Texas.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FUNNY AND SAD...AND HIGHLY ENTERTAINING READ!!!, August 8, 2005

By 

mwyrick (omaha, nebraska) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pretty Boy Floyd (Mass Market Paperback)

I don't understand the review by the (supposed) professor...because I don't think he understood this is a work of FICTION. Though it's loosely based upon an historical outlaw, it is a story told by FICTION WRITERS. It was funny, sad, full of colorful, clever, original dialogue, that made me feel as if I knew these characters inside and out. Pretty Boy was considered a folk hero in the late twenties and thirties, professor sir. Read the novel in that context. I think that was the point of the authors--that this was a time and place they wanted to capture with their imaginations, to bring to life for those of us who weren't alive then (and to entertain those who were). It was a rough time, people were poor, hungry, the banks were the enemy because they put entire families out on the streets, with nothing. There was no welfare, no homeless shelters. It was a wild, rough time. I gave this book to my grandpa (a fine, upstanding man if there ever was one), who remembered Pretty Boy Floyd from his own childhood, and he LOVED it!!! If anything, this novel, by the end, shows us how a wrong turn in the road of life can change the course of our entire future...and how hard it is to ever go back...give it a chance, I don't think you'll be disappointed!!!!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks, Diana and Larry, July 10, 2006

By 

Robert Reardon (Colorado Springs, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pretty Boy Floyd (Mass Market Paperback)

What a breath of fresh air. From the opening scene I was back in McMurtry country (language-wise) - an easy flowing style that is comforting and hypnotic.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sorry, Larry....you're much better as a solo act, February 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Pretty Boy Floyd (Mass Market Paperback)

Since Larry McMurtry was listed as one of the authors of this book, I picked it up and thought I would enjoy it. Boy, was I ever wrong. "Lonesome Dove" was a masterpiece, and so are the other McMurtry books I've read - but this, by comparison, is amateur night. The writing is stiff and reads like something McMurtry might have written when he was just starting out - and then threw in the trash.

Forgive me, Mr. McMurtry, but you're much better as a solo act, and I'm only sorry that you're not going to write any more novels about that wonderful pair, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call.