Customer Reviews

The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde

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This is one of those books I rated much more highly when I first read it years ago. It's a "strange history" indeed. It's not always a "straight" history, anyway, dwelling more on psychological speculations about the personalities of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker and on the growth of their legend (with comparisons to older historical and/or folkloric figures such as Jesse James, Robin Hood and even King Arthur) than on a straight recounting of the facts. Movie buffs will be fascinated with the many motion picture adaptations of the Bonnie and Clyde story and that is an interesting segment which Treherne rightly confined, for the most part, to the appendices. He did leave out the 1949 film They Live By Night (Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell as Clyde & Bonnie clones) and its 1970's remake Thieves Like Us (Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall) but until Treherne's book I was completely unaware of either the 1939 film Persons in Hiding (one of four bearing this title and based in equal parts on both Bonnie and Clyde and Kathryn and George "Machine Gun" Kelly) or of the 1983 Italian comedy version. But, judging from the title, this book was supposed to be a biography of Clyde and Bonnie and a history of their criminal career. So it is, but little is to found in the historical narrative that is new. Most of it derives from previously published sources such as Jan Fortune's Fugitives and Lee Simmons' Assignment Huntsville, the former an error-ridden work based in equal parts on the recollections of Bonnie's mother and Clyde's sister and (uncredited) on a series of 1934 True Detective articles by Joplin Chief of Detectives Ed Portley, the latter valuable mainly for Simmons' recollections of the Eastham prison break and his recruitment of Frank Hamer and for the statements of gang member Joe Palmer. The confession of W.D. Jones is cited in the bibliography but Treherne seems to have read very little of it. The confession would have made a wonderful appendix, by the way, possibly with comparisons to Jones' 1968 Playboy article, of which Treherne seems completely unaware. Not that Treherne didn't do original research. The chapters on the Stringtown, OK shooting and the Platte City, MO gun battle are based largely on interviews and seem to be accurate accounts. It's a pity he didn't cover the other sites this way. Treherne apparently got no closer to Dexter, IA, the gang's Waterloo, than Des Moines, and missed a lot there. He missed out also on Okabena, MN, the site of a bank robbery Treherne, like previous and later authors, attributed, probably erroneously, to the Barrow gang, and the death site in Louisiana. Details of the final ambush seem to come mainly from the transcripts of Henry Methvin's Oklahoma murder trials and the flawed Ambush account--the ghosted memoirs of Ted Hinton. There is no evidence Treherne ever went near the death site in Bienville Parish. Still, the whole book is an enjoyable read and Treherne wisely used less commonly seen photos than the dozen or so Bonnie and Clyde pix seen in most books on the infamous duo. It is an admirable and worthwhile book. One only wishes it was the straight historical record the title implies. One cannot pschoanylize the dead and the best authorities for the love life of Bonnie and Clyde--whatever the details and whatever dubious historical significance that may entail--died with them. And the growth of the Bonnie and Clyde legend is more suited to a study of folklore than a straight biography.

Every since studying the Arthur Penn film in college, I've been interested in the myth behind the famous outlaws of the 30's.

The book does an excellent job of fleshing out the people behind the myth. Although I assumed there was some "Hollywood" tampering with the facts of the film, I was more impressed with how accurate the 1967 film actually was in terms of documenting the events. The book fills in the gaps and expands not only on the personalities, but on several key events in the criminals spree that couldn't be included in the 1967 film. While the '67 film tended to humanize Barrow and Parker, this book cuts straight to core of the unbalanced and unsocial behavior of the two.

If you're a fan of the film, or at all interested in the history behind Barrow and Parker, this is the book to read.

I really enjoyed it!

This is not the best book due to lack of research - many authors seem to complie previously researched facts & information. It is interesting and goes into great detail to explore the legend of Bonnie and Clyde. Reviews all movies and discusses the charachters vs the tru people at length. Not the best, but a nice addition to your collection. John N. Phillip's book is by far the best yet!

It is great to read how Bonnie and Clyde were able to escape from the law over and over again untill they were gunned down in 1934. They were nothing more than two amateurs who were incredibly lucky.

In the 1967 film there is a scene where they try to rob a bank, discovering that it closed three weeks earlier. Up to now I didn't realize that this actually happened, which shows how well prepared they were commiting these bank robberies. Although the film is pretty accurate, this book gives us more information about the famous couple. It shows how they became legends in American crime history, and became even more famous after their death.

True crime lovers should read this book, because although they were amateurs, they are probably still the most famous couple in the world.

Not as great as I was hoping it would be. Have read better written books on the couple and I have read most of them available.

This is my first book on these two and it will not be my last. There is a good bibliography provided to follow up sources of information and other books. As well as being a history book the author delves frequently into his reflections about what made Bonnie and Clyde tick. The author seems determine to provide psychological profiles at regular intervals throughout the book to explain Bonnie and Clyde's actions and decisions and almost tries to get inside their minds. At times l thought why does he bother at others l thought he made some interesting comments. Mr Treherne does a good job of explaining how the folklore of these two developed over the years and endures to this day. Even here in Australia a lot of people know about Bonnie and Clyde, though mainly through the Faye Dunaway movie.

He covers their childhood and family life very well and provides plenty of details of the harsh, poor economic times they lived through and the circumstances of their late teens that led to their fateful meeting which developed into an enduring bond and progression into a life of crime that spiraled into senseless violence and devastation of so many lives. Sometimes there is too much psychological speculation and not enough history as the book seems to skim the surface in some areas and could have dug deeper into the history of Bonnie and Clyde, but the photos and newspaper headlines of the time are great. This book is worth a look!

WELLL THE BOOK I READ ABOUT WAS SO COOL AND INTRESTING.EVENTHOUGH I ONLY READ A FEW PAGES .I GOT A FEW CAPTATIONS OF THE BOOK ...BASICALLY THE BOOK WAS ABOUT,HOW IN THE LATES 1930'S TWO TO LIVE THEIR ROMANCE BY MAKING CRIMES...THE CHARACTERS OF THIS BOOK WERE BONNIE PARKER AND CLYDE BARROW..WHO WHERE A YOUNG SOCIOPATHIC SOUTHERN COUPLS GUNNED DOWN BY AUTHORITIES AFTER TWO YEARS OF CMMITING CRIME, WHO LEFTED 12 PEOPLE DEAD.THE BOOK WAS ALSO INTRESTING BECAUSE I WAS ABLE IMAGING AND PICTURE MANY OF THE READING THAT I WAS MAKING ....I WOULD RECOMMENED TO READERS WHO LIKE TO READ ABOUT CRIME, TO READ THIS BOOK BECAUSE IT S VERY MYSTIRIOUS AND FUN. THE AUTHOR TELLS THE WHOLE UNEDIFYING STORY FROM WRETCHED CHILDHOOD TO WRECTCH DEATH, BLOODY FAME AND WITH CLARITY, LEVEL HEADEDNESS AND WITH ECONOMY.