An entertaining, well-researched foray into the life of a well-known but legend-layered outlaw.
A writer with a fascination for the storied crimes of the Wild West turns to the stagecoach robber of history and lore.
English-born Charles Boles had gone west seeking fortune, failed, returned to the Midwest in time to serve with distinction in the Battle of Vicksburg and Sherman’s March to the Sea, and then gone west again. Somewhere along the way, he decided it was less strenuous work to hold up stages, and so he did. As Boessenecker recounts, an early exploit was a robbery of a stagecoach on the twisty seaside road near Mendocino, California, where, according to some passengers, he told the driver, politely, “Please throw out the box and the mail bags.” Boles later left a taunting poem directed at Wells Fargo, the owner of the loot. The politeness and witty literacy—he had excelled in childhood in “reading, writing, and penmanship” as well as Bible study—of the unknown robber offered the local press a field day in recounting tales of the “gentleman bandit,” aka Black Bart. The outline of Boles’ career is well known. However, as Boessenecker observes, it’s so shot through with legend, courtesy of inventive journalists, that much of it is just plain wrong. The author helpfully corrects many of the myths—e.g., that a supposed run-in with a nefarious Wells Fargo agent had sent Boles careening off into a life of vengeful crime, when there’s no evidence to support the assertion. While serving up a lively account of Black Bart’s career, Boessenecker does the math to conclude that Boles committed 32 holdups—three, daringly, after he’d done time in San Quentin for the previous 29. Following that last blast, Boles disappeared in the late 1880s, never to be seen again, conjectured to be working mine claims in Mexico or ranching in Arizona. As Boessenecker concludes, “the fate of Black Bart, the poet highwayman, remains one of the great mysteries of the Wild West.”
An entertaining, well-researched foray into the life of a well-known but legend-layered outlaw.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781335449429
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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