Killing Mister Watson

by Peter Matthiessen

Overview

Drawn from fragments of historical fact, Matthiessen's masterpiece brilliantly depicts the fortunes and misfortunes of Edgar J. Watson, a real-life entrepreneur and outlaw who appeared in the lawless Florida Everglades around the turn of the century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679734055
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/30/1991
Series:	Vintage International , #1
Edition description:	1st Vintage Books Edition
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	273,046
Product dimensions:	5.13(w) x 7.91(h) x 0.87(d)
Lexile:	1210L (what's this?)

About the Author

Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City in 1927 and had already begun his writing career by the time he graduated from Yale University in 1950. The following year, he was a founder of The Paris Review. Besides At Play in the Fields of the Lord, which was nominated for the National Book Award, he published six other works of fiction, including Far Tortuga and Killing Mister Watson. Matthiessen's parallel career as a naturalist and explorer resulted in numerous widely acclaimed books of nonfiction, among them The Tree Where Man Was Born, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and The Snow Leopard, which won it. Matthiessen died in 2014.

Editorial Reviews

Numerous acquaintances of the leg endary Edgar J. Watson, said to have gunned down the outlaw Belle Starr, are given voice in a fictionalized oral history set in the Florida Everglades. PW called this ``an imaginative and haunting evocation of a time and place, and the paradox of the tenderness and brutality with which real and imagined lives are filled.'' Ten tales about people trapped in futile behavior patterns comprise On the River Styx: ``In limpid, lyrical prose, these dazzling stories ob jectively explore the lack of communi cation between husbands and wives, between races and cultures.'' (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Around the turn of the century southern Florida was an inhospitable region populated by Seminole Indians, runaway slaves, Civil War deserters, and other misfits and desperados. ``Suspect everyone and ask no questions'' was the rule, and those foolish enough to ask questions of Edgar J. Watson, a hard-drinking sugar-cane planter rumored to be The Man Who Shot Belle Starr, were quickly silenced. But as the railroad brought civilization ever closer, Watson's brand of frontier justice seemed increasingly out of place, even to his admirers. Thus, the community's first civic act was to be a ritual murder. Matthiessen's fact-based historical novel assembles the evidence: newspaper clippings, diary extracts, the testimony of neighbors and kin. In constant deep focus is the spectacle of the wanton destruction of the ecosystem--a process well underway by 1910. An important and provocative book from the author of Far Tortuga ( LJ 4/15/75). Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/90.-- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles

Library Journal

YA-- More than 20 men wait in ambush as Mister Watson steps ashore and is shot dead. From this beginning, the story of Edgar J. Watson is told through the recollections of his daughter and neighbors, and by reports from magazines, letters, and other historical papers. This is a study rich in history, social studies, ecology, and nature of the The Ten Thousand Islands area of southwestern Florida from 1890-1910. It was a haven for escapees and renegades, and poor treatment of Indians, blacks, and half-breeds was accepted and expected. When Watson arrived there in the 1890s, he was thought of as quiet and friendly. But an aura of danger grew with the stories told and retold about him. When it was alleged that he killed 57 people (including Belle Starr), the tales became folk legend. The setting and characters are fully drawn as Watson's menacing power grows steadily. Because ten characters tell and retell in dialect their versions of the Watson story, YAs will need to persevere with this demanding format. If they do, they will know the Florida era that ended when Mister Watson was killed. --Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

School Library Journal