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Historical Fiction
Rascals, Rogues & Scalawags of the Old West
by Bob Turpin
Readers who enjoy a good old-fashioned yarn told in a style reminiscent of the western magazines of more than a generation ago will surely enjoy Bob Turpin's stories of twelve western miscreants and con men.
One cannot be facile in pigeon holing these stories as either history or fiction, although there is no pretense on the author's part to write scholarly history in the twelve portraits contained in the book. None of the standard treatments we use today in historical writing is present. There are no footnotes, citations, bibliography, or even an index. Few historians are cited in the body of the text, although it is clear the author has read widely and knows his topics. Rather, in the tradition of earlier writers in the western genre such as Walter Noble Burns, Turpin has told whopping good yarns, putting exciting words in his characters' mouths and placing us in rip-roaring scenes that took place on the owlhoot trail.
There is little sentimentalizing or romanticizing of the malefactors who are his subjects of a dozen portraits. These men were bad to the core. Among the better known characters are Hurricane Bill Martin, Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce, Cockeyed Frank Loving, Prairie Dog Dave Morrow, and "Pistol Pete" Frank Eaton, the latter who gets one of the few positive portraits in the book. While such men are not in the front line of western outlaw figures, those wishing to have a better picture of their roles in outlaw-lawman history will enjoy Turpin's writing and will learn new details, even as the reviewer cautions that none of the contentions can be followed up without citations.
In the end, I must admit to a guilty pleasure--these stories are enjoyable to read. Purists and those knowledgeable about the subjects will no doubt carp about the accuracy of some of the scenes drawn, but this was not the author's point. Turpin presents a kind of non-fiction historical fiction without pretension and does so in honest prose. The idea was to tell a story people would want to read, a long tradition in the field.
One cannot be facile in pigeon holing these stories as either history or fiction, although there is no pretense on the author's part to write scholarly history in the twelve portraits contained in the book. None of the standard treatments we use today in historical writing is present. There are no footnotes, citations, bibliography, or even an index. Few historians are cited in the body of the text, although it is clear the author has read widely and knows his topics. Rather, in the tradition of earlier writers in the western genre such as Walter Noble Burns, Turpin has told whopping good yarns, putting exciting words in his characters' mouths and placing us in rip-
There is little sentimentalizing or romanticizing of the malefactors who are his subjects of a dozen portraits. These men were bad to the core. Among the better known characters are Hurricane Bill Martin, Johnny-
In the end, I must admit to a guilty pleasure-
Article Source: To see this review by Mark Dworkin on
Review Written by
Mark Dworkin (Thornhill, Ontario)
Mark Dworkin (Thornhill, Ontario)
Rascals, Rogues & Scalawags of the
Old West
• 226 pages
• 12 short stories
The characters in this book were bold, mean, and rotten to the core, outlaws that
infested the western frontier where the law of the six-
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