WILD BILL

 

WILD BILL

By Tom Clavin

St. Martin’s Paperbacks

347 pgs

 

We’ve always been fascinated by the legendary western hero, Wild Bill Hickok. From the days of the black and white television series starring Guy Madison, to tons of Hollywood films ending Keith Carradine’s portrayal on the HBO series “Deadwood.” Along the way we’ve picked up a few biographies, but none more complete and authentic than Tom Clavin’s “Wild Bill.” Clavin is a dedicated western historian and in this book he paints the picture of the real James Butler Hickok from his youth on the frontier to his days in the Union Cavalry during the Civil War. Then there are his exploits on the frontier with such companions and Buffalo Bill Cody and encounters with George Armstrong Custer and so many others. 

Clavin takes special care in eviscerating false myths that have survived Hickok’s death at the hands the cowardly Jack McCall. Most prominently the falsehood that he was romantically involved with the flamboyant Calamity Jane. The truth being he was married to one Agnes Lake, a woman ten years his senior who owned a travel circus and whom he loved dearly. As is typical of any Clavin tome, he introduces us to tons of real, colorful figures and their own histories, assembling his wild west mosaic until the reader is totally mesmerized by all the things he/she didn’t know. This book is a sheer delight and we give it major thumbs up.


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