A great deal has been written about the Earp brothers; both the quality of research and the opinions expressed vary widely. Nearly all of the literature is about Wyatt; hardly any of it deals with the Earps prior to the 1881 shoot-out in Tombstone, Arizona. For example, Casey Tefertiller’s biography Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1997) is nearly four hundred pages long, but only its first thirty-three pages deal with Wyatt’s first thirty-three years. Even less is known about his brothers prior to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. And even less is known about the women the Earps lived with. Bessie Bartlett Earp may have been born in either Illinois or in New York State. I placed her in Tennessee in order to address the theme of regulated versus prohibited vice.
In my portraits of James, Wyatt, and Morgan Earp, I tried to stay as close to the facts as possible while allowing myself enough latitude to account for the seeming contradictions in their lives. For my purposes, the telling document is one that barely mentions the boys. In 1864, long before the Fighting Earps were famous, Sarah Jane Rousseau traveled from Iowa to California as part of a wagon train led by their father, Nicholas Earp. Her diary of that journey was recently published by Earl Chafin (The Sarah Jane Rousseau Diary, Earl Chafin Press, Riverside, California, 2002). Rousseau provided a contemporary description of Nicholas Earp as a volatile, bad-tempered, profane, and violent man who did not spare the rod. This confirmed suspicions I had already developed regarding the relationship between Nicholas and his sons.
Wyatt’s fictional observation about the making of bullies rests on the insight of Edward Nolan. Eddie and his wife, Chrissie, raised their family in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the latter half of the twentieth century, when Belfast was as dangerous as Dodge in the 1870s. Belfast boys had to be tough without inviting conflict, and Eddie taught his sons that bullies were boys who’d been beaten by their fathers. “Look at them with scorn, the way their fathers did, and they’re small and powerless again, just like their fathers wanted them to be.” (I do not recommend this tactic, even if you are as physically imposing as the Nolan brothers and the Earps. My advice is: Run.) Eddie’s son Art Nolan convinced me that I should write this story. Art and his father provided endless encouragement while I worked on the novel, even as Eddie himself was facing down a lung disease as lethal as John Henry Holliday’s tuberculosis. Eddie lived long enough to read the complete manuscript and to express his joy in it; I only wish I’d flown to Belfast to hand it to him. Too late now.
Wyatt Earp wasn’t the only one who had trouble keeping Dodge City’s shifting factions and baroque feuds straight, so I simplified Dodge City history, politics, economy, and social organization.
Details of the 1871–72 curriculum at the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery are accurate, as are assessments of John Henry Holliday’s professional skill. I thank Dara Rogers, D.D.S, for her modern insight into nineteenth-century dental procedures. In addition, the following generously shared their areas of expertise with me.
Piano and music theory: Bob Price.
Horse and racing lore: Kristi Cetrulo; Cornelia Chapman; Lynette Hulbert; Beverley McCurdy; Mary Rose Paradis, D.V.M.; Anne Swan; Sara Tidd.
Clinical aspects of untreated pulmonary tuberculosis and advancing respiratory disease: Nancy O’Leary, R.N.
The psychological aftermath of almost getting killed in combat: Captain Timothy Riemann, USMC.
James C. Earp’s wartime service in Company F, 17th Illinois Regiment: Nathan Moran.
Indian one-liners about mules: Ray Bucko, S.J.; Peter Klink, S.J.; and Ron Kills Warrior.
Jesuit missionary history in North America: Mark Thiel; Raymond Bucko, S.J.; and Dave Myers, S.J. Father Myers is also a lawyer who checked legalisms and Latin.
Other languages: May Burl (French); Dr. Ray DeMallie (Osage); Dr. Suzanne Bach (German); Annie Ho Lucak (Chinese). I used T. E. Shaw’s translation of The Odyssey (Oxford University Press, New York, 1956) and Robert Fagles’ of The Aeneid (Viking Press, New York, 2006), but felt free to recast the poetry to fit Doc and Kate’s interpretations.
For close reading and sensitive criticism of the story, I thank Gretchen Batton, Ellie D’Addio Behr, Ray Bucko, Kari Burkey, Rebecca Chaitin, Dick Cima, Mary Dewing, Miriam Goderich, Jennifer Hershey, Nancy O’Leary, Bob Price, Tim Riemann, Dara Rogers, Dan Russell, Vivian Singer, Kate Sweeney, Bonnie Thompson, and Jennifer Tucker.
Special thanks to Kari and Dave Burkey for a glorious experience at the KD Guest Ranch in Adamsville, Ohio. They taught me to ride with authority, and I had the time of my life learning how to pen calves!
If you have been moved by John Henry Holliday’s story, please consider making a donation in his memory to one of the organizations that change lives around the world by providing free surgical correction of cleft palates and cleft lips. My husband, Don, and I have chosen the Smile Train for our own donations.
M.D.R.
About the Author
MARY DORIA RUSSELL has studied nine languages, written five novels, and earned three degrees in anthropology. Her novels have won a number of national and international literary awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and the American Library Association Readers’ Choice Award. The Sparrow was selected as one of Entertainment Weekly’s ten best books of the year, and A Thread of Grace was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The daughter of a sheriff, Dr. Russell spent her academic career teaching gross anatomy at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dentistry in Cleveland, Ohio, where she still lives with her husband of forty years. She is at work on her next book.
www.MaryDoriaRussell.net
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