 "nothing really new" | 2008-07-15 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2B7H65OJY7ET9 |
| I was a bit disappointed in this book, I have to admit. I was hoping to learn more about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who they were, what circumstances led them to life of crime, and so forth... I was expecting maybe some new never-before-seen photographs in this book, but I guess that's a lot to ask for people who lived 80 years ago. I am very interested in the Bonnie and Clyde story, and I have to rate this book good, but not great. |
| |
 "Nice Bonnie & Clyde overview with just the facts." | 2008-07-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A14HX16Z3LV2W4 |
| This is a nice condenced overview of Bonnie and Clyde. If you want a crash course or are just interested in the true story- start here. |
| |
| "Great book" | 2008-01-12 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3M7FTQ8FNQONK |
| This book has a lot of interesting information and tons of pictures. If you want to know anything about Bonnie and Clyde, it's all in this book. |
| |
| "A First-Rate Work of History" | 2007-12-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2EO22R28XAABB |
I first became aware of Bonnie and Clyde after a frigid night's motorcycle ride to see Arthur Penn's 1967 movie. Except for buying a DVD thirty years later, I seldom thought of them. Then, last November, my wife and I visited Dexter and Stuart, Iowa. In April of 1934, a month before their deaths, Bonnie and Clyde, along with Henry Methvin, robbed the bank in Stuart. Ten months before, the Barrows had shot it out with a posse at Dexfield Park, north of Dexter. The site of an abandoned amusement park, Dexfield offered Bonnie and Clyde, along with the severely wounded Buck Barrow and his wife Blanche, temporary sanctuary following a shootout in Platte City, Missouri. Penn's movie placed the shootout in Platte City, Iowa, which doesn't exist, ignoring the long ride from the Kansas City area to western Iowa. It also ignored the fact that Buck lived several days after his head wound and actually died of pneumonia. Penn's characterization of Blanche as a screaming ninny isn't accurate, either, and it got him sued.
Penn wasn't after history, but sensationalism. James R. Knight is after history. He is one of those wonderful people who recognize that everything is coming together and seizes the moment. Penn's movie was only the latest in a thirty-year sequence of stylized and mostly inaccurate portrayals of the lovers and their companions. It perhaps began with Jan Fortune's Fugitives, published a scant few months after the fatal ambush in Louisiana. It continued through books by several members of the posse who killed Bonnie and Clyde, and by former criminal companions. As many of the principals, including members of the Barrow and Parker families, aged, other writers began to interview them before it was too late. Given the opportunity to pull together their work with original research, James Knight acted.
This book is the result.
Perhaps only a person who doesn't depend on writing for his income could have done it. Knight, after all, is a pilot for Federal Express who just happens to be an excellent historian. His book shows meticulous patience, coupled with a desire to be what Fox news isn't, fair and balanced. For instance, he gives Fortune's oft-maligned piece credit for what it got right. Though he depends heavily (for the first few chapters) on the recollections of Marie Barrow Scoma, a teenager at the time of her brother's death, Knight sometimes argues, appropriately, with her recollections. After all, she could not have known all that her adult brother was up to. Knight understands that the Barrow and Parker families were far more complex, and far more involved in supporting their wayward kin, than has heretofore been obvious. The evidence has always been there, but Knight uses it broadly and well.
The author is so careful to remain balanced, and to avoid the hysterical tone of previous books, that his prose sometimes seems bloodless. Nowhere is this more evident than in chapters 36 and 37. There, he recounts events around the May, 1934, ambush that killed Bonnie and Clyde. He is meticulous in describing the location and sequence of the wounds each received, the damage to their stolen Ford, and the behavior of members of the posse. It's important, though, because the ambush has so often been misinterpreted. I hope that in a future work Knight will greatly expand these chapters, taking a closer look at everything and everyone who contributed to the ambush and at the questions that still remain. Still, Knight corrects several misconceptions and downright errors fostered by the movie and by previous books. You won't know it, though, unless you read the extensive footnotes.
Which brings me to the subject of how most to benefit from reading this 2003 work. I read it twice. The first time, I had a bookmark in the footnotes and flipped back and forth frequently. The second time, the bookmark was located in the first appendix. This allowed me to review a full history of each character as s/he surfaced in the text. As a result, I have a far better idea of "the story of Bonnie and Clyde" (to borrow the popular title of Bonnie's second poem) than I received on that winter night in 1967.
For all of that, Knight neither whitewashes nor condemns Bonnie and Clyde. Rather, he recognizes the essential tragedy of their story. They lived on their own terms, but everyone paid a price. That they paid with their lives does not obscure the suffering inflicted on their families and on families left fatherless. At the same time, Clyde might have remained a relatively small-time crook (or made changes in his life similar to those accomplished by Ralph Fults) were it not for the brutality he experienced in the Texas prison system. The story of Bonnie and Clyde, then, is in some sense the story of human beings interacting with our surroundings--for good and for ill. I am writing this review two days after a confused and angry teenager murdered people in an Omaha mall. He did it with an assault rifle, at a time when gross inequalities again exist between Americans. Clyde used a 1930's version of that rifle, at a similar time. When will the American people demand gun control? And when will we insist on an end to national policies that lead to the creation of millions of poor people? |
| |
| ""This is a Stick Up!"" | 2007-08-14 |
| - Reviewed By divercalamia |
"Here they come down that dusty road, and muddy bend; Man and woman welded in crime, together they lived and together...they died. Who else could it be?; But good ol' Bonnie and Clyde!"
The book entitled, "Bonnie and Clyde A Twenty-First-Century Update" by James R.Knight (with Jonahtan Davis )is... "A killer of a book!"
This is a superbly written and researched book. James R. Knight is too young to have ridden along with them, at least in this life. However, his knowledge and interest in this gun toting couple makes me wonder, where he may have been in his last life time?
His writing is informative, easy to read and follow, and...extremely descriptive. In addition, the book is a photographic library in itself!
Sometimes, I could almost hear the heavy "barking" of Clyde's "BAR" and watch the black exhaust clouds rise from the tail pipe of his get-away, 1934 Ford sedan.
Frank Hamer does not appear to be as powerful a figure as he was portrayed in the 1967 movie with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Although, a central figure in orchestrating the couple's final demise, the initial credit seems to flow toward a little known figure of the ambush group listed as, Officer Prentis Oakley.
Author, James Knight also gives the reader what Paul Harvey used to say on his radio program: "and now you know ... the rest of the story."
Knight follows through with information on the fate of each actor who ever played any part on the stage of "Bonnie and Clyde."
A great job Mr. Knight(and Mr. Davis)! When can we expect another publication???
|
| |
| "A Superb Read" | 2007-06-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3CPYV1EEB9L5H |
| Other than the books written by John Neal Phillips, this is the best of the Bonnie and Clyde books. Well researched, balanced viewpoint, great photos. A superb read. |
| |
| "A must read if you're interested at all in Bonnie & Clyde." | 2006-11-09 |
| - Reviewed By cbaldogo |
| I've read many good books on the subject of Bonnie & Clyde, and even though the 1967 movie was far from accurate historically, it is one of my all time favorite movies. This book does the best job I've found of setting some of the inaccurate facts straight. I live less than 30 miles from Dexter Park, where the gang was ambushed, and I find it fascinating to finally read so many details of what transpired during those events. If this subject interests you at all, then this book is an absolute must read. |
| |
| "Exhaustive research on Bonnie & Clyde" | 2005-07-26 |
| - Reviewed By User: A29BG14AXVEWR |
This new book on Bonnie & Clyde does greatly to enhance the lives and times of the Barrow gang from start to finish. It is laden with new photo's and research and the authors obviously spent a lot of time and money to travel to the various sites mention in the book. I would rate this as one of the best, if not the best book on the lives and crimes of the Barrow gang. Knight and Davis are great researchers and have done an outstanding job with bringing to life the deeds and misdeeds of Bonnie and Clyde and their partners in crime. I would greatly recommend it to anyone interested in this genre.
Mike Koch, author of The Kimes Gang |
| |
| "The whole nine yards" | 2005-04-03 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3NI01ZFVK2084 |
| Best book written on Bonnie and Clyde in regards to telling their entire story from A to Z. If you only read one book on this desperate duo this is the one. |
| |
| "A Families personal thoughts on the Ambush of Bonnie and Cly" | 2004-03-13 |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
| Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed a couple of years before I was born but as I was growing up I was continually asked if I was related to Frank Hamer, so that everyone will know, Frank Hamer was my great Uncle. I have read and reviewed many books and video tapes of the lifes of Bonnie and Clyde and I was very very impressed with way James Knight has written this book. It tells the story as it happened, neither embellishing them as Robin Hoods or playing them down as cold blooded and ruthless killers. I came away from reading the book with a lot better understanding of the minds of Bonnie and Clyde. This book also is the only published item that I have ever seen that identifies two of Frank's brothers in a picture and tells a little of his brothers which were also Texas Rangers. After reviewing the book I let my sister read it and she said the same thing as I have, James Knight has done an outstanding job of telling the story in a very factual and interesting way. His research is outstanding as shown by the minute details he puts in books. I would recommend everyone that is interested in Bonnie and Clyde to read this book to get the real story. Harrison F. Hamer |
| |
Expedited Available
