BOOK REVIEW
Pretty Boy Floyd, Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Simon and Schuster, 1995
Yes, I am on a roll in reviewing Larry McMurtry inspired works (this one is co-written with his fellow screenplay writer Diana Ossana), although the subject of this presentation, the tale of Pretty Boy Floyd the Oklahoma dust bowl outlaw from the Depression-era 1930’s, has always had a certain personal appeal unlike some previously reviewed McMurtry anti-heroes. The name Pretty Boy Floyd is well known to me from my youth listening to Oklahoma- born Woody Guthrie on a folk music program that I tuned into on the radio in the early 1960’s. The tale that Woody told played into (and still plays into) my attraction toward Robin Hood-type figures (whether truly so or not) as part of the American struggle against the old time capitalist bosses and their bankers. Take this line – “Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen”. Sound familiar today?
Of course the reality, as the plot in this book makes abundantly clear, is that these so-called heroic figures tend to either have feet of clay or have been glorified through sheer "trade-puffing” publicity agents, voluntary or otherwise. Nor is Pretty Boy alone in that category. On a scholarly level the late British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn spend the early part of his professional career investigating these types in his seminal work, "Primitive Rebels" and other sociological monograms on the subject of social bandits. But enough of the scholarly here because what our two authors have attempted to do here is to take a little away from that heroic notion and tell the tale as it more probably happened- including the boredom and monotony of everyday life even for well-known outlaws.
Pretty Boy’s tale is standard 1930’s stuff. Nothing doing at home except hard words, hard work, no pay and no adventure on the old homestead. That’s 1930’s Oklahoma in a nutshell. So off to the big city to learn a trade. The trade being robbing banks. Every profession has its rules and etiquette and as the authors tell this tale we are treated to some insights into those customs. But mainly it is set up the job, avoid getting shot and get away fast. If not, then jail, the hangman or shot down in some dark alley. Of course, this would not be a McMurtry-inspired novel if there was not a ton of sex, longings for sex or exasperations with sex. That, I might add, is true for those of us who are not social bandits as well. This is a decent read from a period that kind of marked off the Old West from the new-Tommy guns and fast cars did not figure in those Old West tales, right?
So that is the story line. I have added below, for comparison purposes, the lyrics from Woody Guthrie’s song "Pretty Boy Floyd". And here I will get political. Our Robin Hood figures express that certain longing to escape from the tyrannies of the day. All well and good, however, a close look at the social dynamics of even the Pretty Boy Floyd tale tells us that this is not the way to individual to speak nothing of societal justice. That is food for thought.
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He [Woody Guthrie] also wrote a series of ballads about outlaws, celebrating them as the populist heroes they'd been back in Oklahoma, as poor people who preyed on the rich. He wrote about the Dalton gang,... and about the brazen woman outlaw Belle Starr. But the most famous of his outlaw ballads, and one of his finest pieces of work, was "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd," which he wrote in March of 1939.
Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life, London, 1981, p. 123
Lyrics as recorded by Woody Guthrie, RCA Studios, Camden, NJ, 26 Apr 1940, released on "Dust Bowl Ballads," transcribed by Manfred Helfert.
© 1958 Sanga Music Inc., New York, NY
If you'll gather 'round me, children,
A story I will tell
'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw,
Oklahoma knew him well.
It was in the town of Shawnee,
A Saturday afternoon,
His wife beside him in his wagon
As into town they rode.
There a deputy sheriff approached him
In a manner rather rude,
Vulgar words of anger,
An' his wife she overheard.
Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain,
And the deputy grabbed his gun;
In the fight that followed
He laid that deputy down.
Then he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame;
Every crime in Oklahoma
Was added to his name.
But a many a starving farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes.
Others tell you 'bout a stranger
That come to beg a meal,
Underneath his napkin
Left a thousand dollar bill.
It was in Oklahoma City,
It was on a Christmas Day,
There was a whole car load of groceries
Come with a note to say:
Well, you say that I'm an outlaw,
You say that I'm a thief.
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.
Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.
Lyrics as reprinted in Woody Guthrie, American Folksong, New York, NY, 1961
(reprint of 1947 edition), p. 27
© 1958 Sanga Music Inc., New York, NY
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