Along for the Ride
Page 33
Among the many books and articles that I consulted, the most helpful were those of Jeff Guinn and John Neal Phillips, both of whom are obviously the experts on this subject. Guinn’s Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde exhaustively sifts the evidence on all aspects of Parker and Barrow’s story from context to personalities in a highly readable, somewhat hard-bitten style. With graceful prose, Phillips delves even more deeply in his focused account: Running with Bonnie and Clyde: The Ten Fast Years of Ralph Fults. Both books include copious notes and insightful commentary on sources. In My Life with Bonnie and Clyde by Blanche Caldwell Barrow, edited and meticulously annotated by Phillips, Blanche Barrow’s strong and lively voice conveys not only details of the months she spent as a member of the Barrow Gang but also the language of the time. Wonderfully evocative of the era is Fugitives: The Story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, compiled from interviews with Emma Parker and Nell Barrow, arranged and edited by Jan I. Fortune and first published in 1934.
The documentary Remembering Bonnie and Clyde, directed, written, and produced by Charles T. Leone, provides an intimate perspective, including the reminiscences of Clyde’s younger sister Marie and of several other contemporaries, as well as the footage Ted Hinton took of the scene after the posse had killed Parker and Barrow. Frank R. Ballinger’s website at http://texashideout.tripod.com/bc.htm was invaluable for its extensive, and often irreverent, collection of photos, clippings, and artifacts. Finally, while the most casual Internet search reveals debate among Bonnie and Clyde aficionados over nearly every detail of the pair’s lives, the blog http://bonnieandclydeshouse.blogspot.com/ convinced me that Bonnie’s cousin, referred to as “Bess” in Fugitives and all subsequent accounts, was, in reality, called “Dutchie.”
The poems “Suicide Sal” and “I’ll Stay” (the latter quoted in its entirety) were among the collection of verses that Parker composed in the Kaufman County Jail, which she called “Poetry from Life’s Other Side.” She wrote the ballad “The Trail’s End,” also known as “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde,” shortly before her death. All other verses attributed to Parker in the novel are my attempts to imagine what she might have written. Parker’s elocution piece, “Gertrude, or Fidelity till Death,” is by Felicia Dorothea Hemans, whose poetry often appeared in contemporary compilations of elocution pieces.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m immensely grateful to Jon Zobenica, who was overwhelmingly generous with his remarkable talent and his time and helped me to separate wheat from chaff. I thank my perspicacious agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, for suggesting that I try writing about someone real, and Greer Hendricks, who first acquired this book, for her enthusiasm and confidence in me. If the opening chapters don’t drag and if I’ve stuck the landing, it is thanks to Peter Borland’s keen editorial sense. Astute readers with exceptional psychological insight, Jennifer Stuart Wong and Cynthia Davis helped me fully develop Bonnie Parker’s behavior as a child and her relationship with her mother. I thank Barbara Faculjak for her perennial willingness to read and reread early chapters. So that I could fully research this book, Nick, Ben, China, Raccoon, and Cyrus Schwarz endured thousands of miles in a hot and not particularly fresh minivan; I am grateful to them all. Finally, Ben curbed my instinct to render the tedious and repetitive aspects of Parker’s life tedious and repetitive on the page. He remains the best reader I know.
More from the Author
The Edge of the Earth
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTINA SCHWARZ, author of four previous novels, including the Oprah’s Book Club pick Drowning Ruth and The Edge of the Earth, grew up in rural Wisconsin. She lives in Exeter, New Hampshire, and in South Pasadena, California, with her husband, son, and several demanding pets.
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ALSO BY CHRISTINA SCHWARZ
The Edge of the Earth
So Long at the Fair
All Is Vanity
Drowning Ruth
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