Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride
Author: Michael Wallis
Publisher: W.W. Norton (2007)

 

From the Publisher:
From the best-selling author of Route 66 comes this long-awaited biography of one of America’s most legendary folk heroes.

Award-winning historian Michael Wallis has spent several years re-creating the rich, anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859–1881), a deeply mythologized young man who became a legend in his own time and yet remains an enigma to this day. With the Gilded Age in full swing and the Industrial Revolution reshaping the American landscape, “the Kid,” who was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in the New Mexico Territory at the age of twenty-one, became a new breed of celebrity outlaw. He arose amid the mystery and myth of the swiftly vanishing frontier and, sensationalized beyond recognition by the tabloids and dime-store romances of the day, emerged as one of the most enduring icons of the American West—not to mention one of Hollywood’s most misrepresented characters. This new biography, filled with dozens of rare images and period photographs, separates myth from reality and presents an unforgettable portrait of this brief and violent life.

 

What others say:
"Meticulously cutting a path through the minefield of Billy the Kid mythology, Michael Wallis has given us a story that is at once accurate, nuanced, and avery god read."   
-Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction

"Wallis's reconstruction of the Kid's exploits is engrossing...Over the decades, countless books have been written about the infamous outlaw, and this is surely one of the best." 
        -Publishers Weekly, starred review

 

About the Author:
Michael Wallis, author of Route 66 and the highly acclaimed Pretty Boy, hosts the PBS series American Roads. He also is the voice of the sheriff in the animated Pixar feature Cars. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Hardcover. 288 pages. B&W photographs.