thedailychannel.com — recommended books

Gunman's Rhapsody
by Robert B. Parker

Gunman's Rhapsody is the story of Wyatt Earp's ascendancy to cult icon status, along with his loyal family and associates. Jarringly yet interestingly interspersed with short press clippings from 1879, the story details the Earps' slow slide into disaster, and the gunfight at the OK Corral.

I could see how much Robert Parker must have enjoyed re-telling this story, and I got some good insight into the daily life of the old west, but what I could not understand was why he bothered to write this book. I didn't think there was a great deal about men's relationships with their guns in the old west that was very different from what you might expect. But maybe there is a more powerful cultural myth of Wyatt as some kind of a 'good guy', that needs debunking.

If so, this slow-paced novelization of the Earp family's daily life, and Wyatt's obsession with the fascinating and independent and admittedly daughter of a wealthy man in San Francisco definitely does the trick.

Saddle up a posse, ride on over to amazon.com and draw down on Gunman's Rhapsody by Robert B. Parker.

reviewed September 5, 2001