Great Gunfighters of the West by Carl W. Breihan

   What a fun book. It came with quite a few technical difficulties, but that didn't stop the book from telling its tale and telling it vividly. Great Gunfighters of the West profiles nine gunfighters, some of whom I knew of and most whom I didn't. If you walk away with nothing else, you will walk away with thankfulness that we live in a much more lawful America.
   Whew! I have seen my share of westerns and I still was struck by a certain titillating fear of living in the West during the 1800's to the turn of the century. I know the context of your own personal time defines your reaction to events, but still, I am thankful that this time is my time.
   I was struck by how many of these men were so bad and still sought after to be lawmen of the towns they lived in. (The author states that it was not uncommon to hire badmen to keep the others in line, which I suppose makes a certain kind of sense.) I also found it interesting to see how often they returned to the areas they were already in trouble in. That reminded me of the car chases that take place in the driver's neighborhoods. I always think that I would get out of Dodge (after reading about the actual Dodge City, I am surprised more people didn't) and wondered why the profiled gunmen didn't. I suppose, like our current hoodlums, there is something to be said for familiar places and faces.
   As to the technical difficulties. There was a consistent, though not completely unnerving, use of grammar errors. There was also an assumption of the readers familialarity of the profiled characters and their time, that left me a little confused. I think that this good book could have been at least a really good book if the author had taken the time to tease out some of the background that he alluded to in his profiles. Chapter 8 felt rushed, I think because there was either not enough to tell, the author felt more of an obligation to include him, or both.  The addition of a bibliography of his source materials would have been helpful as well.

Favorite Quotes:

"This was Wild Bill Longley. Cold-blooded, vicious, psychopathic. The only good thing that can be said of him is that he died young, and most of those who knew him thought that wasn't soon enough."

Written to a Texas newspaper before his (Bill Longley's) hanging: "And now, boys, remember the road Bill Longley had travelled, in disobeying his parents, and when you start to do wrong remember that a very small wrong always leads to still greater ones, and so on until finally, nothing will seem wrong to your if you follow the wrong road."

Bat Masterson on gunfighting: "The main thing is to shoot first and never miss."

"He (Ben Thompson) suffered from insomnia and liked to spend the night roving from one quarter of the town to another, usually shooting playfully at anything he saw."

Clay Allison: "Go heel yourself, varmint. I'm waitin'."

Overall Opinion:
At any rate, and my goggle-eyed reading aside, Breihan whet my appetite for a more in depth look at the subject. That's a good thing for an author to accomplish.

Rating:

7