Pretty Boy Floyd [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio Cassette)

by Larry McMurtry (Author), Boyd Gaines (Reader)

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.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Audioworks (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671045458
• ISBN-13: 978-0671045456
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.3 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,649,339 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 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:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's ok, November 27, 2005

By	CBC (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pretty Boy Floyd (Hardcover)

The dialog is stilted, and the plot seems to repeat itself over and over...rob bank, spend time with wife/girlfriends, someone dies. Repeat. But, it was well written and there was some interest in the characters.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining But Inexcusably Naive, September 26, 1999

By A Customer

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

Although this was a generally entertaining book, it was disappointing on two counts. First, it really does read as though it was written by two different authors. The first half of the book lacks depth, while the second half of the book is much more well written. Second, the authors' give an often historically inaccurate and inexcusably sympathetic portayal of Floyd, who was one of the most notorious criminals of his day. The authors would have you believe that he was a fairly decent guy who only hurt others when he had to. On the contrary, Floyd was an extremely self-centered man who cheated regularly on his wife (he often lived with another lover, Beulah Baird, and was known to frequent brothels), and stole from, expoited, threatened, harassed, kidnapped, or killed many innocent victims, including many poor and middle class people. Today, Floyd would be diagnosed as an antisocial personality disorder and he was a sinister man whose criminal deeds, including numourous murders, reaped havoc on dozens, if not hundreds of people. This is the overriding impression that one should have of Floyd and how he should be remembered. McMurtry and Ossana were irresponsible for presenting him in a glorified manner, even though this is a novel. Readers who are uninformed about Floyd's devious nature will be swayed by this book to feel sorry for this egocentric gangster. Therefore, they would be better off reading other, more accurate accounts of Floyd's life, such as Jeffrey King's "The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd."