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Written With Lead: Legendary American Gunfights and Gunfighters
A collection of 18 vigorous, lucid narratives of the lives, exploits and deaths of well-known figures. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
- GenresHistory
304 pages, Hardcover
First published July 7, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 5, 2021
No one needs reminding that America has been chock full of guns since its birth, and that its history is loaded with gunfights. With the right storyteller, many of those gunfights could make for edge-of-your seat reading, but I wish I could say this book was that interesting.
Weir obviously researched this book very well, but he just is not a good storyteller. At least, that's the impression I got from reading this, which is my first book authored by him- maybe the others are better. But I found the prose in this one to be too clunky, draggy, and pocked with questionable grammar to keep my attention. Fact follows fact. In short, clipped sentences. Then he mentions an important detail. But it goes right by you. Because it is not given the attention it warrants.
As revealed in the more recent stories, he is also quite opinionated. In the chapter on the Waco Siege especially, he goes off on the "militarization" of U.S. law enforcement- with justification given the story- but doesn't convincingly explain WHY such militarization happened, choosing instead to blame presidents Clinton and Bush for promulgating it. In the chapter on the Columbine High shooting (why is that unspeakable tragedy in a book about gunfights?) he ultimately blames the incident on violent media such as movies and video games. Come now, we've been over this already.
All this being said, this book is not without its highlights and strong points. As I mentioned, it is well researched, and occasionally holds you interested for a while. But a page-turner it is not, and the staunchly-held opinions of the author are, unfortunately, not always well-argued. Not a crash and burn, but not a bullseye hit either.
Weir obviously researched this book very well, but he just is not a good storyteller. At least, that's the impression I got from reading this, which is my first book authored by him- maybe the others are better. But I found the prose in this one to be too clunky, draggy, and pocked with questionable grammar to keep my attention. Fact follows fact. In short, clipped sentences. Then he mentions an important detail. But it goes right by you. Because it is not given the attention it warrants.
As revealed in the more recent stories, he is also quite opinionated. In the chapter on the Waco Siege especially, he goes off on the "militarization" of U.S. law enforcement- with justification given the story- but doesn't convincingly explain WHY such militarization happened, choosing instead to blame presidents Clinton and Bush for promulgating it. In the chapter on the Columbine High shooting (why is that unspeakable tragedy in a book about gunfights?) he ultimately blames the incident on violent media such as movies and video games. Come now, we've been over this already.
All this being said, this book is not without its highlights and strong points. As I mentioned, it is well researched, and occasionally holds you interested for a while. But a page-turner it is not, and the staunchly-held opinions of the author are, unfortunately, not always well-argued. Not a crash and burn, but not a bullseye hit either.
August 27, 2010
This was a fun history read. I found great little tidbits on people from Pancho Villa to John Dillinger. I was surprised how much of their tales are "iffy" at best. Very entertainingly written. And many of the stories are the type of thing where truth ends up stranger than fiction.
October 2, 2016
Fun overview of the American gunman. Fans of Herbert Asbury would get a lot out of it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews