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Title details for Bonnie and Clyde by Paul Schneider - Available

Bonnie and Clyde

The Lives Behind the Legend

by Paul Schneider
Patrick Lawlor
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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In Paul Schneider's hands, the legend behind the daring movie that revolutionized Hollywood becomes the true story of Bonnie and Clyde. Told in the lovers' own voices, it offers verisimilitude and drama to match Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.


Strictly nonfiction—no dialogue or other material has been made up—and set in the dirt-poor Texas landscape that spawned the star-crossed outlaws, the brilliantly researched and dramatically crafted tale opens with a murderous jail break and ends with the ambush and shoot-out that consigned their bullet-riddled bodies to the front seat of a hopped-up getaway car.


Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow's relationship was, at the core, a toxic combination of infatuation blended with an instinct for going too far too fast. The poetry-writing, petite Bonnie and her diminutive, gun-crazy lover (she at four feet, ten inches tall, he barely 125 pounds) drove lawmen wild, slipping the noose every single time. That is, until their infamy caught up with them in the famous ambush that literally blasted away their four years of live-action rampage in seconds. Without glamorizing the killers or vilifying the cops, this book, alive with action and high-level entertainment, provides a complete picture of America's most famous outlaw couple and the culture that created them.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 12, 2009

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400191437
      • File size: 445355 KB
      • Duration: 15:27:49

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Bonnie Parker wrote her own legend in poetry as she and lover Clyde Barrow eluded authorities throughout their robbery and murder spree during the Great Depression. Her poems are just one of the entry points to this story for author Paul Schneider and narrator Patrick Lawlor. From time to time, Lawlor shifts into a portrayal of their thoughts, including their consciences, complete with the drawls of their native Texas. He also delivers the "rat-a-tat" gunfire that is so much a part of their lives. More conventional devices--news reports, police logs, and the words of friends and witnesses--are also used to convey the escalation of their crimes. Some might be put off by the story's shifting point of view, but the technique draws listeners in. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 19, 2009
      The lives and the legends of doomed outlaw lovers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker unfortunately take a back seat to Schneider's narrative style in this heavily researched but poorly executed account. Despite his claim that no dialogue has been invented, Schneider's approach—addressing Clyde as “you” (“Feels like you and Bonnie are hot as hell everywhere”)—is jarring and irritating. Opening in 1934 when Bonnie and Clyde helped several prisoners break out from Eastham Prison Farm in Texas, , Schneider (Brutal Journey
      ) then rewinds to Clyde's hardscrabble youth in the slums outside Dallas, where he met Bonnie in 1930. The increasingly violent exploits of the Barrow Gang are evocative, especially Clyde's first—and arguably only—premeditated murder in 1931. Yet true to his style, even in their final moments in the ambushed, bullet-ridden car, Schneider forces on readers his own version of Clyde's last thoughts—“you remember Bonnie drinking hot chocolate”—and ruins what should have been a moment of literal and literary silence. B&w photos.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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