Billy Gashade: An American Epic

by Loren D. Estleman

Billy Gashade is a wandering musician crossing the young United States in the late 1800s, and introducing us to its most colorful characters along the way. Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, Chief Crazy Horse, Oscar Wilde, and many many more cross paths with Billy in this sweeping epic of American History from Loren D. Estleman.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Fiction, Westerns, Historical Fiction, Historical

310 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

Loren D. Estleman is an American writer of detective and Western fiction. He writes with a manual typewriter.

Estleman is most famous for his novels about P.I. Amos Walker. Other series characters include Old West marshal Page Murdock and hitman Peter Macklin. He has also written a series of novels about the history of crime in Detroit (also the setting of his Walker books.) His non-series works include Bloody Season, a fictional recreation of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and several novels and stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.

Series:
* Amos Walker Mystery
* Valentino Mystery
* Detroit Crime Mystery
* Peter Macklin Mystery
* Page Murdock Mystery

Reviews

[Rick Ludwig · Rating 5 out of 5]

My nephew, brian recommended this book to me and I'm extremely glad he did. This is an epic, as advertised, but a very personal and enjoyable one. Billy Gashade, whose real name we never learn, led and improbable and exciting life. Its very improbability is what makes it so enjoyable and, on a strange level, believable. Loren Estleman writes a nicely paced saga of an approachable individual who grows demonstrably through the story, but retains the reader' interest and affection. All of the characters in the story are real and intriguing, whether based on actual notables of the era or totally fictional. The story embraces its era, but doesn't distance itself from a contemporary reader. I look forward treading more stories like this from this talented and spirited writer.

[Gary Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unlikely hero for a Western epic, Billy Gashade is a wandering musician whose travels intersect the lives of nearly every legendary character of the Civil War and later era. The characterization of these figures is much deeper than you might expect, and Billy is an unpretentious hero himself with piano, guitar, banjo and grit as his only weapons. If I were pitching this story to Hollywood, I'd say, "Imagine Forrest Gump meets Lonesome Dove."

[Wiebke Kuhn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting historical fiction piece, focusing on one musician who encounters all sorts of famous and infamous people throughout the Wild West while strumming his banjo (and playing other instruments). I learned a few things about life in the West, the Civil War, and life in general (and as I was watching Hell on Wheels at the same time, the two complemented each other nicely). The only reason this is not 5 stars is because towards the end it just fizzles out - as if the writer ran out of steam.

[Teresa Thompson Arcangel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually listen to Westerns, but I loved this book. It reminded somewhat of Little Big Man.I listened to the audio edition. George Guidall was a great choice of narrator and his performance is worth a standing ovation. Bravo, Mr. Estleman and Mr. Guidall!

[Karen]

I never read the book, didn't have time

[Aimee Massey · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This song, it was made
by Billy Gashade,
Just as soon as the news did arrive ..."
So ends the classic American ballad "Jesse James." Nobody knows who Billy Gashade was, but Loren Estleman, a well-regarded writer of many mystery and Western stories, has nonetheless brought him to life.
The story is told in first-person POV by an elderly songwriter and musician calling himself Billy Gashade. Billy introduces himself in the 1930's, where he is living in semi-retirement in Hollywood, then takes us back in time to let us experience his life story.
It is 1863, and the narrator, who never reveals his original name, is a sheltered, musically gifted sixteen-year-old boy, the son of a respected judge in New York City. On a Saturday morning, the judge sends his son out on an errand, and the boy promptly and unintentionally finds himself caught up in the infamous draft riots. He knows little of the rough and tumble world outside his comfortable home, so when he impulsively acts to protect the life of a policeman by breaking the arm of the officer's attacker, he cannot fathom the deadly repercussions his act of bravery will have, for himself, his family, and eventually for history.
The man he injured was a trusted henchman of William "Boss" Tweed, leader of the city's notoriously corrupt and powerful Tammany Hall. Our hero, himself injured in the melee, is taken to a brothel run by Bridie McMurtaugh, who along with her friend, Union officer Tupper Deane, explains the gravity of his situation and hatches a plan to spirit him out of the city to safety.
And so the bewildered youth becomes Billy Gashade, the name of a man who boarded briefly at Bridie's house before he died. Billy is sent out to the wild and woolly border city of Lawrence, Kansas, to earn his keep playing the piano and doing household chores for Bridie's friend Drusilla Patakos, a madam of great character and strength.
Billy is forced to grow up fast; for the first time he must fend for himself, earn his own way, and associate with people he would never have met in his old, safe existence in NYC. And he learns firsthand the sheer and senseless brutality of war when he witnesses the sacking of Lawrence just a few weeks after he arrives at Drusilla's.
Over the years, Billy witnesses many momentous historical events and meets many of the West's most colorful and interesting characters. But unlike Forrest Gump, Billy is intelligent, resourceful, and a keen observer of human behavior. His descriptions of the people and places he encounters on his wanderings are vivid, unsentimental and sometimes ugly, but above all, they ring with honesty.
Billy and all the characters, whether made up by the author or based on real people, are all well-drawn, complex and believable. Billy has been lucky (or sometimes unlucky) enough to be in the right place at the right time more often than any real person would, but he is no Mary Sue. He sometimes despairs, often allows his insatiable curiosity to lead him into big trouble, and at times becomes disappated and ashamed of it. But his luck always holds, helped along by his quick wit, talent, and his innate goodness.

[Mike Gowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an answer to the question 'Who wrote "The Ballad of Jesse James?"' There's a line in the song that goes "This song was made by Billy Gashade just as soon as the news did arrive." It is pretty common for a folk song to mention a specific person. Usually the person is the subject of the song, like Molly Malone, or Barbara Allen or Tom Dooley and the composer is some folky type with a guitar sitting around the campfire, or cadging drinks at the saloon. In this novel we find out from Billy Gashade (not his real name, though we never learn what his real name is) all about his friendship with Jesse James. In the course of the story we learn that Billy got to know a lot of the legendary gunmen and outlaws and lawmen of the Wild West. We also get to know a lot of other interesting stuff, like the life of a buffalo hider, and the economics of a cattle drive. My favorite bit of information, (really) was the lyrics to Garryowen. Garry Owen is supposed to be the official song of the Seventh Cavalry, chosen by General Custer before he met his end at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

I learned how to play Garry Owen once on the hammered dulcimer, played it for a few years and then, as happens, didn't play it for several years. Then when I did try to play it, I kept confounding it with another similar tune, The Campbells are Coming, which I learned from a Loony Tunes cartoon, featuring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. This confusion and the reason for it is quite clearly explained in Billy Gashade, so if you found the last few sentences interesting at all, you should probably find a copy of this book and read it.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just have to conclude that Estleman can't write a bad book. About half way through Billy Gashade I was thinking that there were too many threads to weave and too much territory to cover (in character, geography, and history), to do it well, but he did it.

Billy Gashade is attributed as the writer of the folk ballad "Jesse James", and Estleman takes advantage of the absence of biography on Gashade to craft a life for him that covers the west in all the dimensions I mentioned earlier. Estleman has mastered a spare style of speech, action, and description that is almost cinematic in its near-perfect storyboarding.

[Emma Troyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll admit I was disappointed with this one. From the look of it, I expected the story to be right up my alley; and maybe it was, but it was taking me so long to get into it, and the writing was not engaging me at all. (Plus it was really confusing.) I ended up tossing it aside (in favor of the all the other dozens of books piled up on my desk). It may have turned out to be a good story, but I'm just not in the mood to persevere just now.

[Mark V · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book. It's well written historical fiction with some surprises that keep the reader engaged and reading through the end. Can't give too much detail without giving things away. If you like US history and are interested in mid-19th century, this book is a good read.

[Alex Wolff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun, fantastic work of historical fiction set in the American West. It features a main character growing up among hard times and famous characters of the West with a tremendous story.

[Barrett Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a treat. Humorous, insightful, and dead-on accurate for anyone who follows the literary trail through the Old West. One of those rare books that you wish were twice as long.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pleasant surprise. Didn't expect to like it much (not far removed from Western genre), but couldn't put it down.

[Harry Varnis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unusual, well-done, and pretty wonderful.

[Kathleen Gear · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of you who care about magnificent writing and a powerful story well-told, this is one of the best.