Wildwood Boys: A Novel [Paperback]

James Carlos Blake (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2001

From the raw clay of historical fact, James Carlos Blake has sculpted a powerful novel of both a man and an America at war with themselves. Here is the brutally honest story of free-spirit William Anderson, who is pulled into a savage conflict of state against state in the years leading up to the Civil War. When Bill suffers a catastrophic loss, a fury is unleashed in his anguished soul. He becomes the most fearsome guerrilla captain and earns a name that becomes whispered with reverence and terror: "Bloody Bill."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Once again Blake (Red Grass River) takes on a notorious historical figure and attempts to humanize a man whose reputation is synonymous with murder. William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson emerged along the Kansas-Missouri border in the early years of the Civil War. A horse thief turned "bushwacker"Athe nom de guerre of irregular Southern forces in the regionAAnderson is driven from Kansas and persecuted by Union militia and "jayhawkers"AUnion irregularsAuntil he forms a company and joins forces loosely led by the infamous Charles Quantrill, who, along with Anderson, George Todd and Arch Campbell, terrorized the Sni-a-Bar region of southern Missouri for nearly four years. Blake's depiction of Anderson is kinder than in other recently published novels (Desmond Barry's The Chivalry of Crime; Kevin McColley's The Other Side), which characterize him as one of the most feral and conscienceless men ever to ride across history. Here, Anderson is a Shakespeare-loving, poetry-spouting gentleman, sensitive to nature, kind to women and children. Only in the heat of battle does he exhibit sociopathic expertise in heinous and horrifying ways. The accidental death of his sister, Josephine, with whom Anderson is incestuously obsessed, spurs him to even more brutal acts of malice in the name of Southern glory. Blake's highly readable style is tempered by some gratuitously fustian vocabulary and literary insertions, catalogues of historical detail and somewhat overdone eloquence; thankfully, he eschews the more graphic depictions of violence that he has indulged in elsewhere. With slow, repetitive passages and historical license liberally taken, this epic is not as taut as In the Rogue Blood, but it is still a gritty, gripping adventure. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Blake is a unique chronicler of hard lives in harder times." -- --Rocky Mountain News

"Ladies and gentlemen, the next Cormac McCarthy." -- -- Texas Monthly

"One of the best and most original writers in America today." -- --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1st Perennial ed edition (July 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380805936
• ISBN-13: 978-0380805938
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #249,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The bloody meridian of the Border War, August 31, 2000

By 

Ron Franscell, Author of 'Sourtoe Cocktail Club' - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wildwood Boys: A Novel (Hardcover)

James Carlos Blake, the descendant of an American pirate in the Caribbean, once said he wanted to write the most violent book in American literature.

In "Wildwood Boys," he might have succeeded. But the savage narrative isn't driven only by the body count nor the visceral horror in his account of barbaric guerrilla warfare; what makes this book truly horrific is the pure poetry and haunting beauty of Blake's writing. This is the richly re-imagined story of William Anderson, the real-life bushwhacker protégé of William Quantrill, the ruthless sacker of Lawrence, Kansas. For most of the Civil War, Quantrill commanded lawless, Southern-sympathizing brigands whose mass murders, rapes and calculated terror devastated pro-Union towns in the border states -- until he was eclipsed by the living, gore-splashed myth who came to be known as Bloody Bill Anderson.

Of course, historical fiction wouldn't succeed if it didn't disturb the placid waters of allegedly true history. Blake portrays Anderson as a moral monster: a lover of dumb animals and poetry; a cold-blooded guerrilla who questioned the massacre of civilians, but did nothing to stop it; a principled leader of soulless pirate-warriors such as Jesse and Frank James, and Cole Younger; a devoutly loyal son and brother; a pathological hater of Yankees; even a handsome and gallant romantic who marries a young prostitute because she reminds him of his spirited little sister -- with whom he had a vaguely incestuous kinship.

Anderson's famous 1864 raid on Centralia, Mo., is recounted in graphic detail, reworked to blunt the razor-sharp edge of traditionally accepted accounts of the terror he wrought. And by the time Bloody Bill is shot dead a few months later, his bullet-riddled corpse photographed and desecrated by Union troopers, the reader actually feels some sympathy for one of the most prolific mass-murderers in American history.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discover Blake!, January 12, 2001

By 

M. Roebuck (Meridian, Ms USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wildwood Boys: A Novel (Hardcover)

Five solid GOLD stars for this phenomenal book! Blake grabs you by the throat from the very beginning and doesn't let up until you lay gasping for breath at book's end. Historically accurate with characters you can feel and dialogue that will leave you hanging on each word, this book is a "show-stopper' that you will read and re-read. You'll be right back at Amazon ordering his other books and, (horrors!) down at the local Public Library ordering his earlier out-of-print works. Get 'em all.......He doesn't disappoint!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Master Storyteller, March 21, 2001

By 

M. Meszaros "acadia2431" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wildwood Boys: A Novel (Hardcover)

Some authors you read because the journey is better than the destination, but I find with Blake it's the opposite. His action and storytelling outweigh his poetry, although there is poetry, to be sure. He writes with a passion and moves with a purpose. And yes, as other reviews state here, he does not disappoint.