Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde
Author:
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, History
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, History
Book Type: Paperback
It's no surprise that there are numerous books about the two arguably most famous, or notorious, criminals in US history: Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, two small-time petty thieves who graduated to the big time when Clyde began perpetrating multiple murders, including of lawmen, along with his sometimes-gang, a revolving-door of petty criminals like himself, all of whom, as the book notes, were probably more lucky than smart.
Notwithstanding their rather petty crimes, compared to some other notable Depression-era gangsters, Bonnie and Clyde are perhaps most famous for their Romeo-and-Juliet-esque deaths, when they did indeed "go down together," as Bonnie had predicted in one of her many poems, in May, 1934, when they were assassinated by a posse of six lawmen headed by Frank Hamer, a one-time Texas ranger who was charged with hunting them down at all costs. It is arguably their untimely deaths which has spawned an almost cult-like following, which continues unabated nearly a century later.
Not surprisingly, these quasi-mythical figures have spawned a lot of fantasy, both in print and on screen, something this very capable book attempts to rectify. One of its main points is that much of the media associated with them is highly inaccurate, and, not infrequently, intentionally fictionalized, glamorizing the exploits of the two figures, who have often been rendered as little more than cartoon-character stereotypes than real people. In contrast to the many other books and articles which have chronicled their exploits, this book attempts to portray them as they really were, for good and for ill.
And there's a lot of ill. First and foremost: the Great Depression, along with Prohibition, was seemingly a vast wellspring which produced a panoply of the nation's most well-known criminals, some of whom are still household names. John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, and an assorted cast of colorful characters criss-crossed the ravished countryside during the Great Depression, whose exploits provided an almost never-ending source of entertainment for a dejected nation hungry for Robin-Hood-like figures who robbed from the rich (banks were a favorite target), even if they didn't necessarily give to the poor.
That's at least one reason why Bonnie and Clyde were able to remain on the run as long as they did: in addition to their almost inestimable luck, they also had adoring fans who shielded them from the lawmen charged with hunting them down.
Both figures sprang to fame from more-than-humble backgrounds. Bonnie Parker was born in Rowena, Texas, in 1910, the second of three children. Her father died when she was four years old, so her mother moved her and her siblings to a community known then as Cement City, an industrial suburb in West Dallas, where she worked long hours as a seamstress.
Although Bonnie was a promising student, and an admittedly gifted writer, if something of an exhibitionist who loved attention and dreamed of becoming famous (!), she dropped out of high school at fifteen to marry a seventeen-year-old, whom she never divorced, even after he abandoned her. Bonnie was working as a waitress when she met one Clyde Chestnut (sometimes erroneously recorded as "Champion") Barrow, at a party, at his friend Clarence Clay's home, in January, 1930.
Clyde was born into a destitute sharecropper family in 1909, the fifth of seven children. Like so many others of that era, the landless family migrated to the area of West Dallas in the early 1920s. West Dallas at that time was little more than a shantytown slum, where vagrants eked out a living in any way they could, but even among the destitute, the Barrows stood out. They were so poor that they resorted to living under their horse-drawn wagon for several months, lacking the funds to even purchase a tent.
The family's one asset was the horse and wagon. Clyde's father for years used the same wagon which had brought his family to the outskirts of the big city to collect scrap metal, working essentially as a "junk man" to support his impoverished family. Like Bonnie, Clyde likewise dropped out of school at sixteen and began working various odd jobs.
From an early age, it seems that he had aspirations far beyond his humble origins, and developed a great affinity (or envy) for luxury goods far beyond his means: three-piece suits, fancy shoes, hats, musical instruments, and other material goods he would almost certainly have never been able to acquire on the pittance he was making at his assortment of menial jobs.
Hence, Clyde began his first forays into a life of crime as a teenager. He was first arrested at seventeen for failing to return a rental car on time, and was shortly thereafter arrested again with brother Buck, who became a member of his "gang," for stealing poultry. Clyde worked several jobs but continued to supplement his meager earnings, like so many of his contemporaries, by cracking safes, robbing stores, and becoming increasingly proficient at committing what would become his signature crime, car theft.
I won't rehash the material in the book, as it does a fine job of telling the story of this tragic duo who met their untimely end on a lonely section of road in rural Louisiana in May, 1934, after two years of dodging bullets (and sometimes not!), stints in jail, subsequent jailbreaks, shootouts, narrow escapes, and an untold number of crimes, including brutal murder. This is one of the better books I've read about notorious American crime figures, and it pulls no punches about the facts. It differs from others in that it generally lacks the agenda which just about everyone who writes or makes a film about Bonnie and Clyde seems to have.
That extends to their own immediate family members, the vast majority of whom, at some point, it seems, attempted to gain financially from their legacy. As such, they understandably tried to portray their loved ones, notorious criminals though they were, in the best possible light, which resulted in the blatant omission of some of their most heinous crimes. They also often never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Others have fictionalized Bonnie and Clyde's two-year spree to the degree that they were rendered as little more than crude caricatures of who they were as people. For example, in the years following their untimely deaths, Bonnie somehow morphed into some kind of femme fatale, and began to subsequently be portrayed as the mastermind, who used sex to goad Clyde into a life of crime, when, as the book amply demonstrates, nothing was further than the truth. Bonnie was far from innocent, but she was anything but the ringleader: that role fell exclusively to Clyde Barrow, who wouldn't have it any other way, often to his great detriment.
In terms of sources used for information, it would be difficult to find any better: there's an entire list of firsthand interviews the author employed in assembling this lengthy and detailed book. He also draws from a vast and diverse array of primary source documents, some of which have never been made public, including three different accounts written by Clyde's own mother Cumie Barrow, about her son and his misadventures, which have never been published.
Clyde's youngest sister Marie also wrote several versions of their story. The extensive and detailed notes are actually readable, and offer additional information on sources. It's clear that the author was highly invested in the accuracy of this account, as there has been so much misinformation published in past exposes of the famous duo. It may truly be their "untold story."
Great read if you're into true crime and are interested in this period of US history. I'm more interested in the "Americana" aspects of this fascinating albeit tragic period, when some of the most famous gangsters in US history proliferated and captured the public's imagination, as newspapers heralded their exploits in robbing banks and bootlegging. Although they never achieved the fame or fortune in their own day that some of the aforementioned big-name gangsters did (Dillinger reportedly disdainfully called the duo "a couple of kids stealing grocery money"), Bonnie and Clyde certainly rank among their number, and are, nearly a century after their deaths, even more famous and world-renown than they were in their own time.
Notwithstanding their rather petty crimes, compared to some other notable Depression-era gangsters, Bonnie and Clyde are perhaps most famous for their Romeo-and-Juliet-esque deaths, when they did indeed "go down together," as Bonnie had predicted in one of her many poems, in May, 1934, when they were assassinated by a posse of six lawmen headed by Frank Hamer, a one-time Texas ranger who was charged with hunting them down at all costs. It is arguably their untimely deaths which has spawned an almost cult-like following, which continues unabated nearly a century later.
Not surprisingly, these quasi-mythical figures have spawned a lot of fantasy, both in print and on screen, something this very capable book attempts to rectify. One of its main points is that much of the media associated with them is highly inaccurate, and, not infrequently, intentionally fictionalized, glamorizing the exploits of the two figures, who have often been rendered as little more than cartoon-character stereotypes than real people. In contrast to the many other books and articles which have chronicled their exploits, this book attempts to portray them as they really were, for good and for ill.
And there's a lot of ill. First and foremost: the Great Depression, along with Prohibition, was seemingly a vast wellspring which produced a panoply of the nation's most well-known criminals, some of whom are still household names. John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, and an assorted cast of colorful characters criss-crossed the ravished countryside during the Great Depression, whose exploits provided an almost never-ending source of entertainment for a dejected nation hungry for Robin-Hood-like figures who robbed from the rich (banks were a favorite target), even if they didn't necessarily give to the poor.
That's at least one reason why Bonnie and Clyde were able to remain on the run as long as they did: in addition to their almost inestimable luck, they also had adoring fans who shielded them from the lawmen charged with hunting them down.
Both figures sprang to fame from more-than-humble backgrounds. Bonnie Parker was born in Rowena, Texas, in 1910, the second of three children. Her father died when she was four years old, so her mother moved her and her siblings to a community known then as Cement City, an industrial suburb in West Dallas, where she worked long hours as a seamstress.
Although Bonnie was a promising student, and an admittedly gifted writer, if something of an exhibitionist who loved attention and dreamed of becoming famous (!), she dropped out of high school at fifteen to marry a seventeen-year-old, whom she never divorced, even after he abandoned her. Bonnie was working as a waitress when she met one Clyde Chestnut (sometimes erroneously recorded as "Champion") Barrow, at a party, at his friend Clarence Clay's home, in January, 1930.
Clyde was born into a destitute sharecropper family in 1909, the fifth of seven children. Like so many others of that era, the landless family migrated to the area of West Dallas in the early 1920s. West Dallas at that time was little more than a shantytown slum, where vagrants eked out a living in any way they could, but even among the destitute, the Barrows stood out. They were so poor that they resorted to living under their horse-drawn wagon for several months, lacking the funds to even purchase a tent.
The family's one asset was the horse and wagon. Clyde's father for years used the same wagon which had brought his family to the outskirts of the big city to collect scrap metal, working essentially as a "junk man" to support his impoverished family. Like Bonnie, Clyde likewise dropped out of school at sixteen and began working various odd jobs.
From an early age, it seems that he had aspirations far beyond his humble origins, and developed a great affinity (or envy) for luxury goods far beyond his means: three-piece suits, fancy shoes, hats, musical instruments, and other material goods he would almost certainly have never been able to acquire on the pittance he was making at his assortment of menial jobs.
Hence, Clyde began his first forays into a life of crime as a teenager. He was first arrested at seventeen for failing to return a rental car on time, and was shortly thereafter arrested again with brother Buck, who became a member of his "gang," for stealing poultry. Clyde worked several jobs but continued to supplement his meager earnings, like so many of his contemporaries, by cracking safes, robbing stores, and becoming increasingly proficient at committing what would become his signature crime, car theft.
I won't rehash the material in the book, as it does a fine job of telling the story of this tragic duo who met their untimely end on a lonely section of road in rural Louisiana in May, 1934, after two years of dodging bullets (and sometimes not!), stints in jail, subsequent jailbreaks, shootouts, narrow escapes, and an untold number of crimes, including brutal murder. This is one of the better books I've read about notorious American crime figures, and it pulls no punches about the facts. It differs from others in that it generally lacks the agenda which just about everyone who writes or makes a film about Bonnie and Clyde seems to have.
That extends to their own immediate family members, the vast majority of whom, at some point, it seems, attempted to gain financially from their legacy. As such, they understandably tried to portray their loved ones, notorious criminals though they were, in the best possible light, which resulted in the blatant omission of some of their most heinous crimes. They also often never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Others have fictionalized Bonnie and Clyde's two-year spree to the degree that they were rendered as little more than crude caricatures of who they were as people. For example, in the years following their untimely deaths, Bonnie somehow morphed into some kind of femme fatale, and began to subsequently be portrayed as the mastermind, who used sex to goad Clyde into a life of crime, when, as the book amply demonstrates, nothing was further than the truth. Bonnie was far from innocent, but she was anything but the ringleader: that role fell exclusively to Clyde Barrow, who wouldn't have it any other way, often to his great detriment.
In terms of sources used for information, it would be difficult to find any better: there's an entire list of firsthand interviews the author employed in assembling this lengthy and detailed book. He also draws from a vast and diverse array of primary source documents, some of which have never been made public, including three different accounts written by Clyde's own mother Cumie Barrow, about her son and his misadventures, which have never been published.
Clyde's youngest sister Marie also wrote several versions of their story. The extensive and detailed notes are actually readable, and offer additional information on sources. It's clear that the author was highly invested in the accuracy of this account, as there has been so much misinformation published in past exposes of the famous duo. It may truly be their "untold story."
Great read if you're into true crime and are interested in this period of US history. I'm more interested in the "Americana" aspects of this fascinating albeit tragic period, when some of the most famous gangsters in US history proliferated and captured the public's imagination, as newspapers heralded their exploits in robbing banks and bootlegging. Although they never achieved the fame or fortune in their own day that some of the aforementioned big-name gangsters did (Dillinger reportedly disdainfully called the duo "a couple of kids stealing grocery money"), Bonnie and Clyde certainly rank among their number, and are, nearly a century after their deaths, even more famous and world-renown than they were in their own time.
