Lucky Billy

You may already know everything there is to know about Billy the Kid; after all, there is not that much you CAN know--the established facts of the Kid's brief life are few. And a lot of what people think they know derives from the many books (from Pat Garrett and Ash Upton, down through Walter Noble Burns, to Michael Ondaatje, and so on, down to Michael Wallis, and now John Vernon) and movies (way too many even to hint at) and songs and stories. Even a ballet. You name it. Google "Billy The Kid" and you get over 16M hits. Even Wyatt Earp rates only 1.2M and Custer 3.5M. Interpret this as you will, it still gives some idea of the degree of cultural penetration. The Kid's story has been told and embellished so many times that there may seem nothing left to wring from the meager fund of fact that the storyteller has to work with. But that sort of idea does not take into account the talents of the writer who sets out to go where so many have gone before. Some writers are better than others, and some are danged good, and these latter excel at making new images out of old materials. So it is with John Vernon's newest, "Lucky Billy." Vernon sees things new and describes them in language that brings out the uniqueness and ordinariness of The Kid's life, of any life. He moves effortlessly between the known facts and uses language that is often stunning to bridge the significant gaps between them. The New Mexico landscape becomes, as it must in such a story, another character, at once the setting and the driver of action: distance, color, light, weather are all given their part. The people, who often in such tales degenerate into symbols, seem to live and breathe in this landscape. In short, it is a fine accomplishment, so even if you think there is nothing left to learn about The Kid, you should take some time and acquaint yourself with this telling, probably the thousandth, of this story. It has seldom been told so well.

A well-known writer once said, "All stories should have a beginning, middle, and end, but not necessarily in that order." Using a fragmented-time framework, John Vernon skillfully creates Billy as a complex individual--not all bad, not all good--and a product of being on the wrong side of the law because of his siding with John Tunstall in the Lincoln County War--a more ethical man than the sleazebag cowboys who won the War. (Vernon's using Tunstall's letters also adds a lot to the historical and personal framing of the story.) John Vernon is a poet and has the poet's keen ear for word choice. His language is something to savor. Even when describing things that are typically gross and gory, the descriptions are beautiful. One example occurs early in the book when Pat Garrett is in a bar and notices a fly on the table: "I widened my eyes and fixed them on a fly grating my nerves in a puddle of beer. When my hand walloped down, beer fountained the table . . . .I smeared the pastry of fly guts and beer to the fat of my thumb and flicked it on the floor." His violent, slo-mo scenes, while graphic, are equally stunning, his ear for dialogue superb. His right-on landscape descriptions are seen by someone who does indeed know this place. Luck Billy is a poignant, rollicking read, with a great overview of the time period and sharp insight into the person Billy the Kid might have been.

Lucky Billy is written in a manner to draw the reader in, yet also to give her by implication a larger view of a particular time and place. Those readers who are looking for a straight forward tale of adventure may be disappointed. But straight forward tales do not often encompass the complexity of a life, and in this case, the author has chosen a stronger and more vivid path to do so by moving back and forth in time and in viewpoint. The descriptions of the landscape are magnificent and the characters fascinating. This is literature, not a Western, but literature as it should be---available to any reader without prejudices. I came away with scenes still vivid in my mind weeks later.

John Vernon offers a fresh portrait of Billy the Kid, in Lucky Billy, that deepens Billy's appeal and illuminates his tragic flaw. Familiar to all Americans, this notorious outlaw is portrayed as an ornery and endearing adolescent who lived during a time when violence was a way of life. After the death of his mother, Billy intermittently engages in honest work but is pulled into a life of crime that, at times, is more heroic that criminal. Vernon actively engages the reader to think about what is occurring with who and why. Snuggle up to a warm fire or swing on a hammock and take your time to read about an ordinary young man, turned extraordinary.

Billy the Kid continues to fascinate. One advantage of the BTK story as a platform for fiction is precisely that we "know how it ends". The novelist is free to flesh out the historical person through interior dialogue. There are many compelling elements in this novel, and Mr. Vernon completes the charactersis in varied ways. Sometimes sheriff Pat Garrett tells what he thinks to fellow saloon drinkers while he ruminates on his own presentation. Other times, we see John Tunstall's letters home. Or follow Bily's thoughts as he rides through the New Mexico countryside. The structure, with its time shifts, is very engaging. It requires us to piece the story together much as an Impressionist painting requires the viewer to "complete it" in his own mind. The intellectual adventure of the novel is much more fully present than in a linear narrative. There is also a very interesting bit of dialogue that occurs on page 57, which is key to the entire novel. Fred Waite - an associate of Billy's - is explaining to Billy the tangled business and insurance issues regarding Jimmy Dolan, Lawrence Murphy, and Emil Fritz. [Waite says]"Well, look. Pay attention. This is the part where the soldiers on the ramparts talk about the king's been acting queer lately." "What king?" "Never mind...." [Waite's explanation continues.]> <br /> <br />The above section does a lot of work. The obvious reference to "Hamlet" makes us understand that Waite is better educated than anyone we have met thus far - we have already been told that he had attended three colleges -but the line does more than that. Much of "Hamlet" is interior drama through individual thought. In "Lucky Billy" we piece together the story through the thoughts - interior dialogue, really - of Billy, Pat Garrett, and even John Tunstall in his letters to his family. <br /> <br />But there's more. Billy and Waite are themselves mere "soldiers", whether in the service of Tunstall, Dolan, or John Chisum. In the above scene they are almost like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as they puzzle their way to an understanding of the confused affairs of their superiors: their "kings." <br /> <br />Finally, the landscape is also a very effective character, perhaps for me because I am still in the thrall of "The Land of Enchantment", as New Mexico bills itself. <br /> <br />Essential reading for BTK fans or anyone who enjoys an imaginative reconstruction of the past. <br />