Epitaph

O.K. Corral Gunfight — art by Bob Boze Bell of True West Magazine. I love his stuff…

Oh, hell! Another book about the O.K. Corral gunfight?

I’d have sworn after listening to the audio book of Jeff Guinn’s excellent “The Last Gunfight,” that I’d never read another book about the unpleasantness in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881-82. Much less a novel.

But … Mary Doria Russell.

Mary Doria Russell is a very highly-regarded American novelist. I’m only familiar with her through her novel “Dreamers of the Day,” involving T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and Winston Churchill at the Cairo Peace Conference after World War I. Her novel “Doc,” about Doc Holliday has come highly recommended but I never got around to it. Apparently bewitched by a story that has captivated so many over the past 130 years, she turned her attention from the tubercular dentist to the broader tale of Tombstone, the Earps, the Cow Boys and 30 seconds of chaotic gunfire that would immortalize Wyatt Earp.

She says she read 19 linear feet of books on the subject, and she put her butt in a saddle to retrace the route of Wyatt Earp’s Vendetta Ride, undertaken after the gunfight and after his brother Morgan was assassinated in a billiard hall by Cow Boy gunmen. And she did tequila shots with a Doc Holliday researcher and reenactor in character.

All of which is quite cool, but wouldn’t mean much if she hadn’t written a good book. Which she has. Instead of trying to build false tension in a story where most readers know at least the main high points, she plays with the “inevitability” of the events, with some very self-conscious and neatly handled foreshadowing. And her use of point-of-view is also excellent. This is not Wyatt Earp’s story, or Doc’s or Josephine “Sadie” Marcus’ — it’s all of their stories. The men, the women, the Earp Faction, the Cow Boys — all get their due. They may not be especially sympathetic (except Doc) but they all have their reasons. Just like in real life.

The portrait of Sadie is particularly poignant. Her manifest charms are on display, and Russell sketches with a sure hand a girl whose desires and dreams outstrip her talents in a way that most folks can surely relate to. The depiction of her slide into dementia in her last years is sad and rings true.

Russell is also at pains to set the story in a broader political context, in an era where politics were every bit as sordid and partisan as they are now, and worse.

In short, this is a fine read on an old, familiar tale. Like a good sipping whiskey, it goes down smooth and is none the worse for being familiar.