Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride

by Michael Wallis Narrated by Todd McLaren

Overview

From the bestselling author of Route 66 comes this long-awaited biography of one of America's most legendary folk heroes.



Award-winning historian Michael Wallis has spent several years re-creating the rich, anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859-1881), a deeply mythologized young man who became a legend in his own time and yet remains an enigma to this day. With the Gilded Age in full swing and the Industrial Revolution reshaping the American landscape, "the Kid," who was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in the New Mexico Territory at the age of twenty-one, became a new breed of celebrity outlaw. He arose amid the mystery and myth of the swiftly vanishing frontier and, sensationalized beyond recognition by the tabloids and dime-store romances of the day, emerged as one of the most enduring icons of the American West-not to mention one of Hollywood's most misrepresented characters.



This new biography separates myth from reality and presents an unforgettable portrait of this brief and violent life.

Editorial Reviews

Henry McCarty (1859-81), a.k.a. Billy the Kid, was a frontier gunslinger, a hunted outlaw, and, not least, the dime-store novel creation of Gilded Age journalists. Since his famous demise at the hands of Sheriff Pat Garrett, the Kid has graduated from local legend into national myth, becoming the subject of dozens of novels, poems, and films. Route 66 and Pretty Boy author Michael Wallis has composed a biography that delineates what is real and what is not about America's most beloved badman.

Publishers Weekly

The boy who would become Billy the Kid (1859-1881) was born Henry McCarty, perhaps in the Irish immigrant wards of New York City. Not much is known about his parents, and it's difficult to trace his whereabouts until his family turned up in Silver City, Colo., in the early 1870s. Both the facts and the legend pick up in 1877, when Henry-already known to some under the alias Kid-shot a man who was bullying him and began a life on the run. Wallis's reconstruction of the Kid's exploits is engrossing. But even more, Wallis (Route 66) shows Billy the Kid as a product of his era, one of profound social dislocation. Billy the Kid was, indeed, only the most legendary of a generation of "desperate men" who knew how to handle a gun. At the same time, a new kind of sensationalist journalism was being created, and reporters were more than happy to contribute to the creation of a myth. Wallis, the host of PBS's new American Roads, writes clean prose, occasionally enlivened by a particularly lovely turn of phrase ("the liquid rustle of cottonwood leaves"). Over the decades, countless books have been written about the infamous outlaw, and this is surely one of the best. 60 illus. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Historian Wallis (Route 66) turns his attention to Billy McCarty (1859–81), a.k.a. Billy the Kid, carefully separating fact from myth—a difficult task, since the myth has all but obscured the facts. Drawing on archival sources and interviews as well as documents and secondary works, Wallis digs beneath the surface, clearly identifying what is known or probable and presenting the reasonable alternatives for what is conjecture. He emphasizes the politics of the Gilded Age and how it affected the frontier and Billy in particular. This well-written and engaging biography is aimed primarily at general readers interested in the West and provides a clear, concise, and reliable account of Billy; Wallis is careful not to make his story so complicated that it confuses readers. Nevertheless, given the extensive research underlying it, the book can stand alongside Robert Utley's more scholarly Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life. Recommended for public and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ11/1/06.]
—Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette

Kirkus Reviews

In this objective, non-sensationalistic biography of legendary outlaw Billy the Kid (1859-81), historian Wallis (Pretty Boy, not reviewed, etc.), host of the PBS series American Roads, painstakingly sifts fact from fiction. The trail of The Kid runs colder each year. A legal tussle even broke out recently over exhuming his mother's remains to compare the DNA to that of the body beneath The Kid's tombstone. Following the work of pioneering Western historians such as Frederick Nolan and Robert Utley, Wallis discusses this and other controversies surrounding the desperado (e.g., did he have Hispanic ancestors?) before venturing his own, usually plausible, conclusions. Although variously known as Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney, the outlaw was likely born Henry McCarty to a mother who fled Ireland's Great Famine of the 1840s. Neither a modern-day Robin Hood nor a cold-blooded killer, The Kid was, suggests Wallis, simply a scrawny ex-New York street urchin forced to live by his wits after the early death of his mother and abandonment by his stepfather. It didn't help that he came of age during a time when a generation of Civil War veterans, often alcoholic and alienated, had access to a glut of new firearms. For much of his adolescence a junior member of a cattle-rustling outfit, The Kid was puffed up out of all proportion as a leader of a gang of desperadoes by dime-story novelists and journalistic hacks. A gregarious sort who abstained from alcohol, he enjoyed dancing and singing and dealing monte and poker to rubes. To be sure, he had blood on his hands, but, claims Wallis, the number of these deaths was exaggerated. Crucially, the author shows how The Kid got caught up in New Mexico'sLincoln County War, a conflict of "greed and corruption waged by profiteers, charlatans and hired guns," where loyalties shifted easily and dangerously. Of more than 50 people indicted during this period, only The Kid was convicted of a crime. Not groundbreaking scholarship, but a sensible summary of a small-time criminal whose short, violent life became fodder for American myth.

Elmore Leonard

"Research became a pleasure reading Michael Wallis’s books about Pretty Boy Floyd and the Oklahoma oil barons for one of my novels. I couldn’t wait to read Wallis’s Billy the Kid, prompted by the author’s scholarship and readable style. Following Wallis’s search for the real Billy the Kid is a fascinating experience."

AmericanHeritage.com - Allen Barra

"Michael Wallis’s Billy the Kid is the closest anyone has come to a definitive biography of the most mythical figure of the American frontier."

New York Review of Books - Larry McMurtry

"Michael Wallis does a scrupulous and persuasive sifting of the evidence about Billy’s life and activities."

From the Publisher

In this objective, non-sensationalistic biography of legendary outlaw Billy the Kid, historian Wallis...painstakingly sifts fact from fiction.-- "Kirkus Reviews"

Michael Wallis does a scrupulous and persuasive sifting of the evidence about Billy's life and activities.--Larry McMurtry "New York Review of Books"

Michael Wallis's Billy the Kid is the closest anyone has come to a definitive biography of the most mythical figure of the American frontier.--Allen Barra "AmericanHeritage.com"

Research became a pleasure reading Michael Wallis's books about Pretty Boy Floyd and the Oklahoma oil barons for one of my novels. I couldn't wait to read Wallis's Billy the Kid, prompted by the author's scholarship and readable style. Following Wallis's search for the real Billy the Kid is a fascinating experience.--Elmore Leonard

This well-written and engaging biography is aimed primarily at general readers interested in the West and provides a clear, concise, and reliable account of Billy; Wallis is careful not to make his story so complicated that it confuses readers.-- "Library Journal"

Wallis's reconstruction of the Kid's exploits is engrossing...Over the decades, countless books have been written about the infamous outlaw, and this is surely one of the best.-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"

DEC 07/JAN 08 - AudioFile

Dime novels made Billy the Kid a legendary outlaw, but he was an actual person about whom the facts have become distorted. Michael Wallis pieces together newspaper accounts and other historical information to trace the Kid’s life, covering his childhood, his early years in Santa Fe, and his experience of the Lincoln County wars. It's a story that twists and turns, and Todd McLaren maintains control expertly as the story evolves from coming-of-age to banditry and violence. While Wallis acknowledges the hyperbole and hearsay that interfere with creating an accurate picture of the Kid's life, his careful research and thoughtfulness show in every word. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170657360
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	05/29/2007
Edition description:	Unabridged

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