<\/p>\n
So much has been written about the OK Corral I almost passed this book up. Now I consider Epitaph one of the best historical novels on the American West I’ve ever read.<\/p>\n
![\"Epitaph\"](\"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Epitaph.jpg\")
Historical fiction often suffers when authors dwell too much on historical fact at the expense of a good story, or as in the case of most accounts of the OK Corral, allow the fiction to run away from the facts.\u00a0\u00a0 Mary Doria Russel achieves a perfect balance.\u00a0 Learn and be entertained at the same time.\u00a0 It\u2019s \u201cedutainment\u201d at its best.<\/p>\n
Ever wonder what these famous characters were really like?\u00a0 How they were raised, what drove them, what and who they cared about, how they made a living, what happened to them after the famous fight?\u00a0 If you like books with extensive character development, you\u2019ll love Epitaph.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not just the famous personalities you learn about. Their relatives, wives, mistresses, get in-depth profiles as well.\u00a0 You end up feeling like you really know these people.\u00a0 And you\u2019re glad you do.<\/p>\n
The author has mastered the omniscient point of view as well as anyone I\u2019ve read.\u00a0 When as narrator she imposes her own view, you\u2019re glad she did, because it\u2019s insightful. \u00a0When she flits seamlessly from one character\u2019s head to another\u2019s, you\u2019re swept right along with her.\u00a0 She knows how to let the reader draw conclusions about characters without explaining them.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an interchange between Curly Bill Brocius, Johnny Ringo and Ike Clanton.\u00a0 Clanton\u2019s part of the \u00a0conversation consists almost entirely of repeating phrases he hears from others:<\/p>\n
\u201cToss in an extra twenty for me and the boys,\u201d Curly Bill suggested, upping the ante, \u201cand you got yourself a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got yourself a deal!\u201d Ike said happily.<\/p>\n
\u201cIke,\u201d Ringo said, \u201cthe devil himself is going to recommend you to God, just to keep you out of hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ike\u2019s mouth worked a bit.\u00a0 You could see he was trying to decide if that was good or bad, but he shut up while he figured it out.<\/p>\n
The reader gets that Ike isn\u2019t playing with a full deck, without the author telling you so.<\/p>\n
If you think our current politics are unsavory, wait till be get a look at the political rivalries that roiled Tombstone, Arizona, in 1878.\u00a0 Like Wyatt Earp himself, I was clueless about why sheriff Johnny Behan was spreading nasty rumors about Wyatt\u2019s friend, Doc Holliday, until Maria Doria Russell\u2019s historian\u2019s eye shed light on the matter.\u00a0 We\u2019re talking Civil War aftermath, reconstruction resentment, mining moguls, graft, corruption, sheriffs collecting taxes\u2026who knew? It\u2019s all there, in splendid detail.\u00a0 Finally, the gunfight makes sense.<\/p>\n
David M. Jessup is author of the award-winning historical novel, Mariano\u2019s Crossing<\/em>, A prequel, Mariano\u2019s Choice, will be published by Pronghorn Press in September 2016.\u00a0 Jessup is co-owner of Sylvan Dale Ranch west of Loveland, Colorado.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So much has been written about the OK Corral I almost passed this book up. Now I consider Epitaph one of the best historical novels on the American West I’ve ever read. Historical fiction often suffers when authors dwell too much on historical fact at the expense of a good story, or as in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,22],"tags":[58,61,59,60],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-books-of-the-american-west","tag-book-review","tag-doc-holliday","tag-ok-corral","tag-wyatt-earp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1602,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions\/1602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}