UBC: Pretty Boy
Wallis, Michael. Pretty Boy: The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. [library]
Unfortunately, as a biography of Pretty Boy Floyd, this is a mediocre social history of Oklahoma in the '20s. It suffers from its author's inability to focus,* which one suspects is at least partly due to the fact that there simply isn't enough known of Charles Floyd's short life to make a 350 page book. Wallis is also a poor hand at organizing his narrative, and he never usefully comes to grips with the fact that almost all of his sources are contemporary newspaper accounts and interviews. Many of the interviews, with family members, are retellings of what Floyd told them, and there is no telling how far away from the truth they may wander--no telling in part because, as I said, Wallis makes no attempt to assess them. Also, he does not footnote, so if a piece of information isn't directly attributed in the text--as for example, the information that after he was dead, police officers cut Floyd's suit into swatches to give away as mementos--there's no way to tell where Wallis got it or how reliable it is.
Wallis also drove me nearly to screaming point with his use of "folksy" imagery. I will quote the worst example:
Actually, this paragraph demonstrates both my major complaints about Pretty Boy: the distracting and irritating writing (there's a passage near the end where Wallis gets into an elaborate and pointless Civil War riff) and the assertion of things Floyd "felt" without any explanation of what Wallis is basing his conjecture on.
Given that Floyd, more than almost any other criminal of his day, was surrounded with legends and that more crimes were attributed to him than he could possibly have committed, I would have liked to see a biography that really wrestled with the question of what we know, how we know it, and where we can--and can't--draw the line between truth and falsehood. But aside from the Kansas City Massacre (Wallis thinks Floyd didn't do it, for the very good reason that it involved a circle of criminals in which he did not travel and was completely unlike his M.O.), Wallis doesn't provide that.
There was one detail that caught me, although again, I don't know what Wallis's source is or whether I should believe it's true. After Floyd died in an Ohio field, his body was handcuffed before being carried to a funeral home in the nearest town. They handcuffed his corpse. Otherwise, all this biography gave me was the desire to know more and to know better.
I finished reading this book because it's the only biography of Charles Floyd out there. But unless you're specifically interested in Floyd, I can't recommend it.
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*E.g., "One of the wildest boomtowns in the Burbank oil field was Denoya, named for a prominant Osage Indian family but better known locally as Whizbang, after Whizbang Red, a notorious Kansas City madam" (126). This is great, but what does it have to do with Floyd?
Unfortunately, as a biography of Pretty Boy Floyd, this is a mediocre social history of Oklahoma in the '20s. It suffers from its author's inability to focus,* which one suspects is at least partly due to the fact that there simply isn't enough known of Charles Floyd's short life to make a 350 page book. Wallis is also a poor hand at organizing his narrative, and he never usefully comes to grips with the fact that almost all of his sources are contemporary newspaper accounts and interviews. Many of the interviews, with family members, are retellings of what Floyd told them, and there is no telling how far away from the truth they may wander--no telling in part because, as I said, Wallis makes no attempt to assess them. Also, he does not footnote, so if a piece of information isn't directly attributed in the text--as for example, the information that after he was dead, police officers cut Floyd's suit into swatches to give away as mementos--there's no way to tell where Wallis got it or how reliable it is.
Wallis also drove me nearly to screaming point with his use of "folksy" imagery. I will quote the worst example:
Choc [Floyd's nickname among friends and family members] spent those dog days in 1931 laid up in the shade like a smart old hound. He was through with pissing in the wind, and wanted to get back to chasing rainbows. Still, the best rainbows appear only after a storm. Choc knew, sure as shooting, he would have to get through more squalls ahead before he would ever lay his hands on a pot of gold.
(215)
Actually, this paragraph demonstrates both my major complaints about Pretty Boy: the distracting and irritating writing (there's a passage near the end where Wallis gets into an elaborate and pointless Civil War riff) and the assertion of things Floyd "felt" without any explanation of what Wallis is basing his conjecture on.
Given that Floyd, more than almost any other criminal of his day, was surrounded with legends and that more crimes were attributed to him than he could possibly have committed, I would have liked to see a biography that really wrestled with the question of what we know, how we know it, and where we can--and can't--draw the line between truth and falsehood. But aside from the Kansas City Massacre (Wallis thinks Floyd didn't do it, for the very good reason that it involved a circle of criminals in which he did not travel and was completely unlike his M.O.), Wallis doesn't provide that.
There was one detail that caught me, although again, I don't know what Wallis's source is or whether I should believe it's true. After Floyd died in an Ohio field, his body was handcuffed before being carried to a funeral home in the nearest town. They handcuffed his corpse. Otherwise, all this biography gave me was the desire to know more and to know better.
I finished reading this book because it's the only biography of Charles Floyd out there. But unless you're specifically interested in Floyd, I can't recommend it.
---
*E.g., "One of the wildest boomtowns in the Burbank oil field was Denoya, named for a prominant Osage Indian family but better known locally as Whizbang, after Whizbang Red, a notorious Kansas City madam" (126). This is great, but what does it have to do with Floyd?
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