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The True, Untold Story Of Bonnie And Clyde
Simon & Schuster
March 2009
On Sale: March 10, 2009
480 pages ISBN: 1416557067 EAN: 9781416557067 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
Forget everything you think you know about Clyde Barrow and
Bonnie Parker. Previous books and films, including the
brilliant 1967 movie starring Warren Beatty and Faye
Dunaway, have emphasized the supposed glamour of America's
most notorious criminal couple, thus contributing to ongoing
mythology. The real story is completely different -- and far
more fascinating. In Go Down Together: The True, Untold
Story of Bonnie and Clyde, bestselling author Jeff Guinn
combines exhaustive research with surprising, newly
discovered material to tell the real tale of two kids from a
filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly
traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and,
more important, fame. Their timing could not have been
better -- the Barrow Gang pulled its first heist in 1932
when most Americans, reeling from the Great Depression, were
desperate for escapist entertainment. Thanks to newsreels,
true crime magazines, and new-fangled wire services that
transmitted scandalous photos of Bonnie smoking a cigar to
every newspaper in the nation, the Barrow Gang members
almost instantly became household names on a par with
Charles Lindbergh, Jack Dempsey, and Babe Ruth. In the minds
of the public, they were cool, calculating bandits who
robbed banks and killed cops with equal
impunity. Nothing could have been further from the
truth. Clyde and Bonnie were perhaps the most inept crooks
ever, and their two-year crime spree was as much a reign of
error as it was of terror. Lacking the sophistication to
plot robberies of big-city banks, the Barrow Gang preyed
mostly on small mom-and-pop groceries and service stations.
Even at that, they often came up empty-handed and were
reduced to breaking into gum machines for meal money. Both
were crippled, Clyde from cutting off two of his toes while
in prison and Bonnie from a terrible car crash caused by
Clyde's reckless driving. Constantly on the run from the
law, they lived like animals, camping out in their latest
stolen car, bathing in creeks, and dining on cans of cold
beans and Vienna sausages. Yet theirs was a genuine love
story. Their devotion to each other was as real as their
overblown reputation as criminal masterminds was
not. Go Down Together has it all -- true
romance, rebellion against authority, bullets flying, cars
crashing, and, in the end, a dramatic death at the hands of
a celebrity lawman hired to hunt them down. Thanks in great
part to surviving Barrow and Parker family members and
collectors of criminal memorabilia who provided Jeff Guinn
with access to never-before-published material, we finally
have the real story of Bonnie and Clyde and their troubled
times, delivered with cinematic sweep and unprecedented
insight by a masterful storyteller.
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Go Down Together
I hope to read this book.Just a couple of hours from Arcadia,La myself I have went past the end of the line for the two many times and would like to hear(read)some true facts about them. (Debra McDonald 1:17am June 2, 2009)
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