Reviews
"In the last three decades, scholarship about Billy has shaken off its pulp origins and become professional, the best three books, in my view, being Robert M. Utley''s Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life (1989), Frederick Nolan''s The West of Billy the Kid (1998), and now Michael Wallis''s Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride."-Larry McMurtry, New York Review of Books, "It's certain to remain the authoritative biography that at last makes the Kid's life whole and understandable."-- San Francisco Chronicle, "A gripping, compelling yarn you can't afford to miss. This is the western book of the year--any year."-- Books of the Southwest, "In the last three decades, scholarship about Billy has shaken off its pulp origins and become professional, the best three books, in my view, being Robert M. Utley''s Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life (1989), Frederick Nolan''s The West of Billy the Kid (1998), and now Michael Wallis''s Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride ."-Larry McMurtry, New York Review of Books, "Utley deftly slices away the veneer of legend to reveal the flesh-and-blood young man a tragic figure who was neither a mythical hero nor a ruthless killer, but a rather ordinary outlaw whose career did not live up to his reputation."-Michael Wallis, True West, "In the last three decades, scholarship about Billy has shaken off its pulp origins and become professional, the best three books, in my view, being Robert M. Utley's Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life (1989), Frederick Nolan's The West of Billy the Kid (1998), and now Michael Wallis's Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride ."-Larry McMurtry, New York Review of Books, "Historian Robert M. Utley has provided us with the best portrait to date of the real Kid, from his shrouded origins in New York City to the escalating criminal career that ended only when lawman Pat Garrett surprised him with a bullet. . . . Utley's [book] is valuable both for its careful separation of fact from fiction . . . and for its thoughtful treatment of the Kid as an American frontier symbol."-- Washington Post, http://nebraskapress.typepad.com/university_of_nebraska_pr/2010/08/a-pardon-for-billy-the-kid-.html ""In the last three decades, scholarship about Billy has shaken off its pulp origins and become professional, the best three books, in my view, being Robert M. Utley's Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life (1989), Frederick Nolan's The West of Billy the Kid (1998), and now Michael Wallis's Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride .""--Larry McMurtry, New York Review of Books ""Utley deftly slices away the veneer of legend to reveal the flesh-and-blood young man a tragic figure who was neither a mythical hero nor a ruthless killer, but a rather ordinary outlaw whose career did not live up to his reputation.""--Michael Wallis, True West, "Noteworthy for its massive research, exciting reconstruction of several gun battles, and Utley's refusal to be suckered into the Kid-as-Hero myth."-- Kirkus Reviews
