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Anything for Billy
The first time I saw Billy he came walking out of a cloud....Welcome to the wild, hot-blooded adventures of Billy the Kid, the American West's most legendary outlaw. Larry McMurtry takes us on a hell-for-leather journey with Billy and his friends as they ride, drink, love, fight, shoot, and escape their way into the shining memories of Western myth. Surrounded by a splendid cast of characters that only Larry McMurtry could create, Billy charges headlong toward his fate, to become in death the unforgettable desperado he aspires to be in life. Not since Lonesome Dove has there been such a rich, exciting novel about the cowboys, Indians, and gunmen who live at the blazing heart of the American dream.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
154 people are currently reading
1569 people want to read
About the author
Larry McMurtry
198 books3,953 followersLarry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 210 reviews
March 27, 2020
“...a wandering boy one step ahead of his doom.”
With “Anything for Billy” Larry McMurtry has created a depiction of the famous “outlaw” Billy Bone, now known to us as ‘Billy the Kid’, with a strong emphasis on the “kid” aspect of his character. This Billy is little more than a child. Literally, a very young man (really a teenager) who is massively insecure, not mentally developed, and possibly manic depressive. I have no idea if any of it is rooted in fact, I don’t care, because it works.
Our narrator in this novel is Ben Sippy, a wealthy Philadelphia socialite and writer of dime novels who heads West to escape a disillusioned home life. Through sheer accident he stumbles into the life of Billy Bone, and is with him till the inevitable end that all outlaws must face.
McMurtry seems to have written the book as a send up of the dime novels of yore, action driven and very short chapters. That is not to say it is badly written. It is not. McMurtry’s blunt prose, no elaborate poetry here, just well rendered details, moves the text along. Having read three of McMurtry’s novels now I am continually amazed at his ability to create full characters with such sparse language. Also, of note is the novel’s stunning closing image. Perfect for this text.
“Anything for Billy” is not McMurtry’s masterpiece, but it is a very good book. I enjoyed my time with it.
July 21, 2019
This book was realistic enough to give me saddle sores and enjoyable enough I didn't notice.
3-read-fiction
March 20, 2017Sure, I'm in a wild-west phase. It's easing my slow withdrawal from my own desert life as a wilderness guide.
"Anything For Billy" is good literature.
Read it flying through the air over the sagey deserts east of Phoenix. Look down between pages and think about what it was like to bump along over the gullys of New Mexico on a sweaty horse swatting flys. No 5 dollar snack boxes, just the occasional stringy jackrabbit or feathers-in-your-teeth Prairie Chicken - and they were ecstatic for it. Joy, joy. Think about what ascetics these range riders were, giving up everything else, just to wake up in a wild place under the moon or sun with the imminence of weather and animal.
McMurty understands the difference between what we like about the legends of these adventurers and what they loved about their own wild lives.
Oh, can I have that wonder again!
"Anything For Billy" is good literature.
Read it flying through the air over the sagey deserts east of Phoenix. Look down between pages and think about what it was like to bump along over the gullys of New Mexico on a sweaty horse swatting flys. No 5 dollar snack boxes, just the occasional stringy jackrabbit or feathers-in-your-teeth Prairie Chicken - and they were ecstatic for it. Joy, joy. Think about what ascetics these range riders were, giving up everything else, just to wake up in a wild place under the moon or sun with the imminence of weather and animal.
McMurty understands the difference between what we like about the legends of these adventurers and what they loved about their own wild lives.
Oh, can I have that wonder again!
May 13, 2025
"Billy, would you kill me?" I asked. "Do you think it's just your right to kill anybody, even a friend? I am your friend, you know."
He looked at me again and finally managed a sheepish grin.
"I guess you are a friend," he said. "It's just that sometimes I wish you didn't talk so dern much."
After finishing Lonesome Dove a few months back, I’ve been itching to pick up another Western by Larry McMurtry. Before diving into Dead Man’s Walk I decided to make a pitstop with Anything for Billy, A standalone, fictionalized take on the legend of Billy the Kid.
And Billy The Kid isn’t the one telling it.
Anything for Billy is told through the eyes of Ben Sippy — an out of place rich dime novelist who finds himself caught up in the mythos of Billy “The Kid” Boo.
”The dime novelists might portray gunfighters as a confident, satisfied lot—I've been guilty of that myself-but the truth is they were mainly disappointed men.
They spent their lives in the rough barrooms of ugly towns; they ate terrible food and drank a vile grade of liquor; few of them managed to shoot the right people, and even fewer got to die gloriously in a shoot-out with a peer. The majority just got shot down by some bold stranger, like the drunk who killed the great Hickok.”
There isn’t that much action in the first quarter of this but there is the legendary character work i’ve come to expect from Larry McMurtry —Joe Lovelady, Old Whiskey, Katie Garza— This book has a rich cast of personalities I came to love (and hate) by the end. This felt a lot more ”fantastic”than Lonesome Dove
”It’s often occurred to me that the Wild West would have been a safer place if fireworks had been more generally available a little sooner.”
That said, this one felt a bit too wordy for me. I still recommend this if you’re at all interested in Billy The Kid or if you love westerns that have rich dialogue & characters on a smaller scale than Lonesome Dove.
He looked at me again and finally managed a sheepish grin.
"I guess you are a friend," he said. "It's just that sometimes I wish you didn't talk so dern much."
After finishing Lonesome Dove a few months back, I’ve been itching to pick up another Western by Larry McMurtry. Before diving into Dead Man’s Walk I decided to make a pitstop with Anything for Billy, A standalone, fictionalized take on the legend of Billy the Kid.
And Billy The Kid isn’t the one telling it.
Anything for Billy is told through the eyes of Ben Sippy — an out of place rich dime novelist who finds himself caught up in the mythos of Billy “The Kid” Boo.
”The dime novelists might portray gunfighters as a confident, satisfied lot—I've been guilty of that myself-but the truth is they were mainly disappointed men.
They spent their lives in the rough barrooms of ugly towns; they ate terrible food and drank a vile grade of liquor; few of them managed to shoot the right people, and even fewer got to die gloriously in a shoot-out with a peer. The majority just got shot down by some bold stranger, like the drunk who killed the great Hickok.”
There isn’t that much action in the first quarter of this but there is the legendary character work i’ve come to expect from Larry McMurtry —Joe Lovelady, Old Whiskey, Katie Garza— This book has a rich cast of personalities I came to love (and hate) by the end. This felt a lot more ”fantastic”than Lonesome Dove
”It’s often occurred to me that the Wild West would have been a safer place if fireworks had been more generally available a little sooner.”
That said, this one felt a bit too wordy for me. I still recommend this if you’re at all interested in Billy The Kid or if you love westerns that have rich dialogue & characters on a smaller scale than Lonesome Dove.
May 13, 2012
Pure fiction, and pure fun.
February 4, 2020
Damn. Billy is one frustrating son of bitch, his own worst enemy and still held in the kindest and highest regards by those close to him. After everything.
The book was wonderfully written, like all McMurtrys western yarns -- but dern.
It'll either make you or break you.
Enjoy it. You'll never read it for the first time again.
The book was wonderfully written, like all McMurtrys western yarns -- but dern.
It'll either make you or break you.
Enjoy it. You'll never read it for the first time again.
October 30, 2015
Entertaining re-telling of the Billy The Kid story, not quite as dark as some of McMurtry's other works but also seemed to lack some of the richer character development and descriptions of the locales. Still, very enjoyable read.
October 9, 2015
The cover alone is sick. Ill as fuck. I am the #15 book reviewer. Billy the Kid is brought to life here and all legit fans of Billy the Kid will enjoy this account.
August 2, 2025
Larry McMurtry has fully redeemed himself with “Anything For Billy”. Me and Larry had a pretty bad fight when I read his Dime-Novel parody-series, “The BerryBender Narratives”. With those books, he seemed to have abandoned everything I loved about his prose and storytelling structure but I won’t go into that here, for more info read my reviews of each book in the series.
“Anything for Billy” is a breath of fresh air, McMurtry is tapping back into what made his Lonesome Dove quartet so perfect. The terrifying unpredictability of life, just like in the aforementioned quartet, is shown off here beautifully. One minute Ben, Billy ,and Joe are having a long conversation around the campfire about their forays into train-robbing and the next minute, Billy is gunning down anyone who crosses his path while he’s running from the law. The novel flies by with ease.
4/5; it’s the best book I’ve read by McMurtry since the “Lonesome Dove” quartet and those are some of my favorite books ever.
“Anything for Billy” is a breath of fresh air, McMurtry is tapping back into what made his Lonesome Dove quartet so perfect. The terrifying unpredictability of life, just like in the aforementioned quartet, is shown off here beautifully. One minute Ben, Billy ,and Joe are having a long conversation around the campfire about their forays into train-robbing and the next minute, Billy is gunning down anyone who crosses his path while he’s running from the law. The novel flies by with ease.
4/5; it’s the best book I’ve read by McMurtry since the “Lonesome Dove” quartet and those are some of my favorite books ever.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2021
What needs to be said, it’s Larry McMurtry for goodness sakes. Fun read, especially if you grew up fantasizing about the old west
May 13, 2021
Though I enjoyed McMurtry's typical earthy prose, the story seemed unstructured and random in its plot.
July 19, 2020
The premise of this book revolves around an eastern dime novelist (Mr. Sippy) who decides to suddenly chuck everything to do with his life into the garbage and travel to the Wild West. He makes the acquaintanceship of one Billy Bone, and thus begins his relationship with this individual. Having just completed the four novel Lonesome Dove series has left me in awe over the scope and depth of Larry McMurtry's ability to view human nature - which is why I'm so confused as to what to make of ANYTHING FOR BILLY. The wonderfully poignant and trenchant anecdotes that pervade the Lonesome Dove series are mostly absent here. We are introduced to an illiterate, ugly, pouty, self-pitying youngster who blames others for his failures, suffers constant migraines, disdains logical argumentation, is terrified of death, is fickle, gullible, and insecure. He's also a lousy shot. (My reason for enumerating his flaws is to contrast him with the historical Billy, who was literate, had a staunch reputation for loyalty, was of cheerful disposition, didn't believe in crying over the past - Pat Garret claimed he always had an eye to the future and didn't look back - was reasonable, didn't fear death, and was handsome - his one beau claimed that the one famous photo of him didn't do him justice. He didn't lack in the bravery department either, and he was a good shot.) Mr. Sippy's assertion that he "...would do anything for Billy" is lacking in verisimilitude. This youngster whines to his confidante, "Nobody ever has liked me...", "I'm just alone", "There's no place in this world for me." By the novel's end, we have witnessed Billy Bone murder an unsuspecting man on horseback simply because he assumed he was a Texan, cold bloodedly slay a man while under a white flag of truce, and murder an unarmed Indian boy (among many other murders). Mr. Sippy's frequent attempts to rationalize with Billy, in order to discover some vestige of morality beneath the surface, meet with the blank stares of a psychopath, indicating that he's hit rock bottom once the surface has been scratched. The reader gets the impression that Sippy's dialogue is frequently aimed more at mitigating the explosion of a loose canon than probing a conscienceless soul. And yet, Sippy's monologues profess a genuine fealty for the boy, but those sentiments can go no deeper than an appeal to his "lonely eyes", describing him as a "likeable boy" and other similar superficialities. Though Sippy is an intelligent and educated man, his own ability to gauge character is brought into question. The realization that he's dealing with a futuristic Ted Bundy throws up no cautionary flags.
Mr. McMurtry has long nurtured a repugnance for the myth of the Old West, but it's hard to reconcile his attempts to dethrone this myth while he himself says of "Anything for Billy" that "I'm simply having a little fun reinventing. I'm not so much demythicizing as remythicizing. I'm reinventing some myths for my own pleasure." Of the real Billy the Kid, he says, "Here was a man, a boy, really, who had a short, commonplace life. How could he have produced a legend...?" Commonplace life? This man had achieved much in his short life, especially in his last years, and it certainly wasn't all commendable. He had killed eight or nine men by the time of his own death. He had the moral courage to submit himself to authorities in order to testify against corrupt officials, and in the end was double-crossed by politicos. He was the only one in the entirety of the Lincoln County War to be criminally indicted and sentenced to execution. The author may have a legitimate beef with the Old West myth, but denigrating the character of William Bonney, such that he presents as a pathetic psychopath, seems disingenuous. Why not pen a hagiography of Billy instead? But maybe the allure of fashionable liberal self-loathing was just too strong.
Mr. McMurtry has long nurtured a repugnance for the myth of the Old West, but it's hard to reconcile his attempts to dethrone this myth while he himself says of "Anything for Billy" that "I'm simply having a little fun reinventing. I'm not so much demythicizing as remythicizing. I'm reinventing some myths for my own pleasure." Of the real Billy the Kid, he says, "Here was a man, a boy, really, who had a short, commonplace life. How could he have produced a legend...?" Commonplace life? This man had achieved much in his short life, especially in his last years, and it certainly wasn't all commendable. He had killed eight or nine men by the time of his own death. He had the moral courage to submit himself to authorities in order to testify against corrupt officials, and in the end was double-crossed by politicos. He was the only one in the entirety of the Lincoln County War to be criminally indicted and sentenced to execution. The author may have a legitimate beef with the Old West myth, but denigrating the character of William Bonney, such that he presents as a pathetic psychopath, seems disingenuous. Why not pen a hagiography of Billy instead? But maybe the allure of fashionable liberal self-loathing was just too strong.
June 10, 2014
Anything For Billy is a fictional account of the final months in the life of Billy The Kid, i.e. it is not true historical fiction, but then it never claims to be. The story is told by a well to do Philadelphian, Benjamin Sippy, in very short chapters, a la James Patterson. “Sippy”, after becoming obsessed with “Wild West” dime-novels, becomes the very successful author of such books and one day – bored with his life and wife – heads out West, meets up with “The Kid”, and begins traveling with him. So begins our story and, at least initially, has the potential to be a good one. Unfortunately the book falls flat with a thud about 100 or so pages in.
The set-up to this story is an engaging one - Sippy the Greenhorn “joining” up with one of the West’s most infamous outlaws with our narrator “learning the ropes” of being a true cowboy. And through Sippy the reader meets up with a fascinating cast of characters, all intertwined through ancestry, revenge and romance. There are also some laugh out loud moments, including Sippy’s 10-day stagecoach journey and his comedic attempts at robbing trains.
But then once this stage is set the story-line falters, at least for this reader, badly. Sippy’s “city-mouse” wide-eyed perspective of the Wild West becomes repetitive. Billy’s brash behavior, at first unpredictable, quickly becomes just the opposite. The impending confrontations, once they finally do occur, are anti-climactic. It almost seemed as if the author was deliberately taking the “wild” out of the Wild West. The violence and gun-play is here, but none of the adrenaline.
Anything For Billy has an interesting premise with interesting characters that loses its way in the telling.
The set-up to this story is an engaging one - Sippy the Greenhorn “joining” up with one of the West’s most infamous outlaws with our narrator “learning the ropes” of being a true cowboy. And through Sippy the reader meets up with a fascinating cast of characters, all intertwined through ancestry, revenge and romance. There are also some laugh out loud moments, including Sippy’s 10-day stagecoach journey and his comedic attempts at robbing trains.
But then once this stage is set the story-line falters, at least for this reader, badly. Sippy’s “city-mouse” wide-eyed perspective of the Wild West becomes repetitive. Billy’s brash behavior, at first unpredictable, quickly becomes just the opposite. The impending confrontations, once they finally do occur, are anti-climactic. It almost seemed as if the author was deliberately taking the “wild” out of the Wild West. The violence and gun-play is here, but none of the adrenaline.
Anything For Billy has an interesting premise with interesting characters that loses its way in the telling.
August 22, 2021
Several times upon reading this book, I remarked to myself, “man, this guy is one hell of a writer.” I say that because his ability to create interesting, compelling characters propels the story all by itself. There are no plot twists, there is little, if any, suspense, even during numerous gunfights. It is not a novel of adventure in the West. It’s the story of the characters in the book, and the way McMurtry makes them seem like living, breathing entities as I read is incredible. The narrator, a down on his luck fiftysonething dime store novelist gone West on an impulse, possesses a razor sharp wit I was not expecting. In fact, I was quite surprised to find myself grinning at a lot of Ben Sippy’s quips. And, in a novel titled “Anything for Billy,” I was pleasantly surprised to find that a host of memorable characters - Old Whiskey Isinglass, land baron, Mesty-Woolah, his African hatchet man, Joe Lovelady, the consummate cowboy, Katie Garza, Lady Snow, the gunfighters of Greasy Corners - all stole the show and prevented the book from being inundated with a rather unsympathetic Billy the Kid the entire time. I read this quite quickly - I did not want to put it down, and it’s been a long time since I read something I felt that way about.
January 17, 2023
Anything for Billy is my second least favorite McMurtry novel (so far, but I only have a few to go), after The Last Kind Words Saloon; it lacks a compelling story or engaging characters, and the prose is never more than adequate. It wants to comment on the mythologizing of the Wild West by looking at the case of Billy the Kid, but it doesn’t say anything of substance. There is very little tension in the plot, and the narrator comes off as smug and annoying. Most damning, and very rare for McMurtry, is that the book’s female characters are lacking in dimension and sympathetic qualities; one is a cold-hearted, self-interested manipulator of men, and the other is an overly emotional bandit who ultimately kills Billy for abandoning her. These traits would be fine if they were well painted (women don’t always have to be virtuous, selfless, and good) but neither is. McMurtry did this sort of thing much better in Buffalo Girls, which breathed new life into Wild West folk heroes. Maybe I’m being cynical, but this is the only of his novels that seems to come from a place where, responding to the success of Lonesome Dove, McMurtry said “oh so you like Westerns? I’ll give you Westerns!” Well, he did, but in this case it wasn’t a good one.
July 1, 2009
I absolutely adore this book. I'm a fan of outlaws in general and Billy the Kid is one of my favorites. This book does a good job of capturing Billy's youth, both his innocence and inexperience. As events unfold, the reader gets a real sense of how things spiraled out of Billy's control.
I plan to reread this soon and will write a longer review then. One of my favorite quotes from this book is something Billy tells Pat Garrett: "Sometimes I just wish they'd let me fall." To me that line perfectly sums up a young man's emotion in the face of events that eclipse him.
I plan to reread this soon and will write a longer review then. One of my favorite quotes from this book is something Billy tells Pat Garrett: "Sometimes I just wish they'd let me fall." To me that line perfectly sums up a young man's emotion in the face of events that eclipse him.
January 16, 2008
First book that made me cry. I remember the last couple of pages being so sentimental, my 15 year old self couldn't keep it in. Someday I will reread, but I don't really want to spoil my memory of it.
April 24, 2011
I expected a more interesting read from the author of Lonesome Dove. It's not a typical western, and it paints an odd picture of the life of Billy the Kid.
May 11, 2012
Ah, not so good in my mind. Lots of action explained with dialogue. I hate that.
August 30, 2022
Undecided. (Lonesome Dove=top 10)
Unsure as to what the intention of this book is. Historical fiction, pure fiction, more comedic or straight tragedy? Is it aimed at young adults, the formatting, style, and prose seem set for a younger audience...
Unsure as to what the intention of this book is. Historical fiction, pure fiction, more comedic or straight tragedy? Is it aimed at young adults, the formatting, style, and prose seem set for a younger audience...
September 25, 2020
At first I found Larry McMurtry's Anything for Billy confusing. Where was Pat Garrett? But then, suddenly, I got it. If you can't figure out McMurtry's gimmick for this wonderful novel, you are not going to understand it, and you're going to think it's very, very strange.
So what's the all important gimmick? This is not historical fiction about Billy the Kid. This is a dime novel about Billy the Kid, presented to us by one Benjamin Sippy, dime novelist extraordinaire. There's no Pat Garrett because the Billy the Kidd we're presented with is Sippy's fictionalized interpretation of him.
Ben Sippy is a wealthy Philadelphian who lives for dime novels. At first he reads them, but one day he runs out of his favorite reading material and begins to write them. He's wildly successful. Unfortunately, his life in Philly is not. He's married to a cold-hearted woman, Dora, who wonders why he "draws breath." The two have nine daughters, all of whom notice their papa only when he's doing the correct "papa" things. One day Sippy decides he's had it. Without notice to anyone, he hops on a ship to Galveston (unfortunately neglecting to pack any reading material).
From Galveston, Sippy travels to El Paso on the stagecoach from hell. As a true gentleman, he gives up his prime spot on the coach to a woman with four children. He spends 10 days trying not to fall forward on to her. Her kids get motion sickness--all four of them. McMurtry's description of the stagecoach journey is short, but he uses exactly the details you need to understand what Sippy undergoes. The stagecoach becomes de-romanticized, as does everything else about Western America, including Billy the Kid.
Billy Bone, as Sippy calls him, is not just "the Kid"; he's A KID--young, immature, brash, ignorant, even, in some ways, entirely innocent. When he meets Sippy, he already has an impressive reputation as a killer, but it's completely unearned. In fact, Billy is a terrible shot.
Sippy is worried Billy will kill him, but instead, he finds himself riding with Billy. Sippy is drawn to the boy, despite his dangerous flaws. Sippy and Billy, along with Joe Lovelady, a broken-hearted cowboy, travel together, exploring some of the most disgusting and dangerous places in the Wild West--for example, Greasy Corners. Greasy Corners is not exactly a town. It's a small collection of shabby shacks, with a saloon as the only business or attraction. Men die because of a wrong word or a wrong look.
Sippy knows Billy is dangerous. He knows riding with him could get him killed (ride with outlaws, die with outlaws, as Gus from McMurtry's Lonesome Dove says). But Billy despite or because of his numerous flaws, is charming. Sippy, Joe Lovelady, and others will do anything for Billy. And of course that leads to disaster.
You can't have a dime novel without a little romance, and Billy has two women vying for his love and attention. The first is Katie Garza, a female outlaw who's far better at outlawing than Billy ever dreamed of. The second is Cecily Snow, an English aristocrat stuck in New Mexico. In fact, in a twisted way, Cecily represents the princess in the castle, guarded by the fearsome dragon. Billy is her prince in shining armor, again in a twisted way. McMurtry twists all the cliches of dime Westerns. We also have the charming outlaw, the city slicker, the faithful sidekick, and the blazing gun battle.
I fear McMurtry may have been too subtle with his set-up of the novel. I suspect that's why a lot of people don't like it and fault it for its historical inaccuracies. Perhaps he should have added a subtitle, as Sippy does for his own novels: Anything for Billy; or A City Slicker Meets a Myth.
So what's the all important gimmick? This is not historical fiction about Billy the Kid. This is a dime novel about Billy the Kid, presented to us by one Benjamin Sippy, dime novelist extraordinaire. There's no Pat Garrett because the Billy the Kidd we're presented with is Sippy's fictionalized interpretation of him.
Ben Sippy is a wealthy Philadelphian who lives for dime novels. At first he reads them, but one day he runs out of his favorite reading material and begins to write them. He's wildly successful. Unfortunately, his life in Philly is not. He's married to a cold-hearted woman, Dora, who wonders why he "draws breath." The two have nine daughters, all of whom notice their papa only when he's doing the correct "papa" things. One day Sippy decides he's had it. Without notice to anyone, he hops on a ship to Galveston (unfortunately neglecting to pack any reading material).
From Galveston, Sippy travels to El Paso on the stagecoach from hell. As a true gentleman, he gives up his prime spot on the coach to a woman with four children. He spends 10 days trying not to fall forward on to her. Her kids get motion sickness--all four of them. McMurtry's description of the stagecoach journey is short, but he uses exactly the details you need to understand what Sippy undergoes. The stagecoach becomes de-romanticized, as does everything else about Western America, including Billy the Kid.
Billy Bone, as Sippy calls him, is not just "the Kid"; he's A KID--young, immature, brash, ignorant, even, in some ways, entirely innocent. When he meets Sippy, he already has an impressive reputation as a killer, but it's completely unearned. In fact, Billy is a terrible shot.
Sippy is worried Billy will kill him, but instead, he finds himself riding with Billy. Sippy is drawn to the boy, despite his dangerous flaws. Sippy and Billy, along with Joe Lovelady, a broken-hearted cowboy, travel together, exploring some of the most disgusting and dangerous places in the Wild West--for example, Greasy Corners. Greasy Corners is not exactly a town. It's a small collection of shabby shacks, with a saloon as the only business or attraction. Men die because of a wrong word or a wrong look.
Sippy knows Billy is dangerous. He knows riding with him could get him killed (ride with outlaws, die with outlaws, as Gus from McMurtry's Lonesome Dove says). But Billy despite or because of his numerous flaws, is charming. Sippy, Joe Lovelady, and others will do anything for Billy. And of course that leads to disaster.
You can't have a dime novel without a little romance, and Billy has two women vying for his love and attention. The first is Katie Garza, a female outlaw who's far better at outlawing than Billy ever dreamed of. The second is Cecily Snow, an English aristocrat stuck in New Mexico. In fact, in a twisted way, Cecily represents the princess in the castle, guarded by the fearsome dragon. Billy is her prince in shining armor, again in a twisted way. McMurtry twists all the cliches of dime Westerns. We also have the charming outlaw, the city slicker, the faithful sidekick, and the blazing gun battle.
I fear McMurtry may have been too subtle with his set-up of the novel. I suspect that's why a lot of people don't like it and fault it for its historical inaccuracies. Perhaps he should have added a subtitle, as Sippy does for his own novels: Anything for Billy; or A City Slicker Meets a Myth.
March 18, 2023
I guess I really don’t love Larry McMurtry’s style. I thought I did, because Terms of Endearment is one of my favorite movies and it was based on his book. And many love him. But this old style western was tough reading for me. I didn’t really like any of the characters. I just wanted to finish it to move on to the next book.
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June 29, 2010Im a huge Wild West fan and i love the country style of life .I have a very strong fascination for Billy the kid in particular .... but this book is so boring.It tries to show you a side of billy that you would never be told otherwise .... but sadly at least till now it does not really tell you why he was so different from any other outlaw. He is just out there wondering why people do things the way they do it and finds it amusing ... in fact he seems so perplexed many a times. Im not enjoying this book and i rarely read a chapter or so just to try 2 finish it ... in the meantime i have completed 4 books till now. I really don't see anything great about the book...
Anyways i'll write a review again later once i finish it and maybe my opinion will change for the better.
Anyways i'll write a review again later once i finish it and maybe my opinion will change for the better.
August 20, 2017
"The first time I saw Billy, he came walking out of a cloud..." I love the legend of Billy the Kid and Larry McMurtry's version of him doesn't dissapoint. The story is narrated by a dime novel author from Philadelphia who heads out to the Old West to gain some experience for his books. He meets up with Billy and follows him, mostly, on some high flying, cold blooded killing, women chasing adventures. This book has everything a Western needs such as Cowboys, horses, wagon trains, train robberies, gunfighters, Indians, whores, ranchers, scheming women, gunfights, and lawmen. Larry McMurty's characters never fail to please and he can sure spin a yarn!
May 24, 2017
This book was engaging, funny and amazingly vivid. I loved everything about it, the language, the story. However, I felt like there's wasn't exactly a takeaway for me except Billy's life (which I frankly am not a fan of). But then not all books are supposed to have a takeaway. As long as you're having a ball reading it, any book is a rippin' yarn.
I hope I can soon get my hands on McMurtry's Pulitzer prize winner Lonesome Dove.
I hope I can soon get my hands on McMurtry's Pulitzer prize winner Lonesome Dove.
August 29, 2017
Another excellent novel of the American West by the peerless Larry McMurtry. Not quite as essential as Lonesome Dove, but a great book, nonetheless. It was a little slow to start, though the pages breeze by easily enough, then about 100 or so pages in I was hooked. This novel has a melancholy feel to it, a bittersweet farewell to the wild west. It also has everything else that McMurtry does so well, humor, adventure, excellent characters. A great book, highly recommended.
October 14, 2019
Larry McMurtry just has such a way with writing humanity. It’s funny, it’s not funny at all. It’s sweet, it’s sad. People are weird, and they do what humans do. They follow their heart, they make mistakes; they plan carefully, they act impulsively; they win, they lose. They take the path they must, and for some odd reason, it’s only those around them that can really see the pot holes ahead. I love Larry McMurtry.
June 20, 2019
Ben Sippy writes dime novels of the West, but he comes down to New Mexico and experiences the real West as he travels with Billy Bone (the Kid) and Joe Lovelady. They meet a wide cast of characters and Billy's actions begin the legend of his life. I can see why McMurty is a Pulitzer Prize Winning author.
June 5, 2007
As always well written by McMurtry, but less evocative than other western he's written.
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December 26, 2011Worst book I ever read and finished. Historically inaccurate. Boring..
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