Bucking the Tiger

by Bruce Olds

An American Library Association Notable Book

John Henry Holliday was an Ivy League-educated dentist from a genteel Georgia family when at the age of twenty-one he was diagnosed with consumption and given six months to live. Instead, over the next fifteen years, he composed of his sojourn on America's western frontier a paean to the ways in which a man might bluff death—and attain a measure of immortality.

In Bucking the Tiger, Bruce Olds uses a pan-dimensional, genre-blurring collage of original poems, reconstituted news accounts, adulterated epigraphs, song lyrics and photographs, simulated eyewitness testimony, fictionalized memoir, invented correspondence, re-imagined folk history—less to restore the past of a figure who in his lifetime was more thoroughly mythologized than Jesse James or Billy the Kid, than to re-story it entirely.

Evoking Doc Holliday's checkered careers as a frontier dentist, itinerant saloon gambler, professional faro dealer, and occasional shootist (including his involvement in the fabled gunfight at the OK Corral), Bucking the Tiger displaces the popular image of the Latin-spouting serial killer with the reality of a human being who, exiled to an emotional and physical landscape to which he was singularly unsuited, strove to make of his self-affliction an expression of sustained, if often violent, art.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published August 14, 2001

Reviews

[Isabelle Maennle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated reading this book. I don’t even have the words to describe how it felt to read. Maybe like walking through a thick swamp without being able to find a direction or path? I understand the concept and it could have been really cool! This book just missed the mark for me completely. I never got into it and felt that there was little if any storyline. bleh!!!

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of the life of Doc Holiday -- gambler, gunman, and dentist. I almost put the book down at the beginning. It starts out over-written to a fault. However, if you stick with it, the book unfolds and both entertains and engages your mind as it tackles living fully, death, and dying with dignity.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know when you were a kid and your Aunt Phillis wanted to know what you wanted for your birthday, and you reluctantly let on that you were kind of into Winnie the Pooh, and then for the next 15 years you got Pooh themed pajamas and toothbrushes and everything else? Well, that's kind of how it is for me with Doc Holliday. My father-in-law gave me a title for a song, and now the Old West books just keep flowing. This one showed up unannounced, and so I just dove in blind. It says "a novel" on the cover, and I appreciated the hint, because it doesn't really read like a novel. It is more of a fictionalized biography, without a whole lot of actual action, but heavy on the personality analysis and description of the time, place, and person. The problem for me was, having read an actual Doc Holliday biography, this one didn't totally ring true for me in terms of how the main characters were all portrayed. I will say this, though. Bruce Olds is a genius and master of the English language. I wish I had read this before taking the SAT, because it would have doubled my vocabulary. The style is unique, the pages unfold in a torrent of words, and there is beauty in the meter and rhyme. Poetry is mixed in with prose. I had to admit, though, that there were many times I would finish a section that had an intrinsic beauty to it and I would struggle to figure out exactly what he was getting at or how it furthered the portrayal. It also seemed like all the characters were possessed of this amazing vocabulary and flowing narration, which may not have been so fitting. In the end, I almost felt like it was above me, like I needed a semester-long English class to unpack it, and I was ready to move on when I was done.

[Avis Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is nothing I despise more than self-consciously 'literary writing.' WHAT is always more important than HOW, and I have zero patience for those who place style over substance. Style is what you like when you're young, dumb, and easily deceived. Substance is what you learn to love when you're older and wiser, when you realize the essence of things is more important than the mask which hides them.

Still, I am tolerant of someone who wants to try going off the rails and completely wrecking the train. Fortunately for the author and his obsession with style, this book is rescued by the fact that Olds is writing about one of history's great WHATS.

There are a few events in history that stand out among thousands of others, which are very unusual and special once you study them in detail. These are history's Great Stories. One is the Greco-Persian wars, another is King Henry II's quarrel with Thomas Beckett. A third is the American Civil War. A fourth is the gunfight at the O.K Corral and the relationship of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. That, ultimately, is what rescues this book.

[Elizabeth Randell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Life is too short to waste on a book like this. I gave up on page 133. Though I appreciate what Olds is doing with words, I quickly tired of the many lists that make up the bulk of the narrative. The list that ended it all:
Forty Rod
Tanglefoot
Two Blend
Nitro Pyro Metho Diablo Tabasco
Swokeye
Cheapjack Potato Jack
Knockback
Black-n-jakle
Mouthwash Brainwash Bellywash Throatwash Tonsilwash
Sourmashw Tatermash
Gulch Cider
Barleycorn
And on and on and on ...

[J.I.]

This is a lyric book, a series of documents real and invented that attempt to tell the story of Doc Holiday in a series of poetic escapes, interviews, snatches of conversations, poems and clippings. It is purposely broken and incomplete and it is slavishly allitereative and dense on love of language.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cool idea of using poetry and letters to chronicle the life of Doc Holliday! It's an interesting read as the style changes with each piece. Probably not a book for everyone but I liked it for what it is. I expected extensive resources listed, but there's not too many. A good read all the same.

[Ronald Demoya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poker, Whiskey, TB, and Whores was the life of Doc Holliday. You read this novel understanding why he feared nothing, and regretted everything. Pain was his constant friend, the pain of loss or TB he was never alone because of pain. His dear friends made his life bearable, like Virgil and Doc. But he needed something more, but no one could give it to him.

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adored this book - it's not all what you would expect. It's more like poetry than narrative, and it's a completely enthralling portrait of a man permanently on the verge of death. Forget that it's a 'Western' - there's no hint of Louis Lamour in this book.

[RUSA CODES · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the 2002 RUSA Notable Books winners. For the complete list, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rus...