Castle Garden

By Bill Albert and Bill Alpert

Book Overview

He had arrived in America in 1887, but we first met him in 1906 when it seemed he may be approaching the end of his story, for he has been arrested from blowing up the ex-governor of Idaho, a murder which lead to one of the most celebrated trials of the period. The men questioning him wan t him to implicate Big Bill Haywood, leader of the IWW and the Western Federation of Miners. Wanting to save himself, he tells the detectives stories they want to hear. He also tells stories he wants us to hear. They are not always the same, but they are all true stories of the American West. His subsequent experiences, as he flees further west, pursued by Pinkerton detectives, provide a story of violence and class conflict found neither in the Wild West Show, nor in the dime novels. He finds himself increasingly entangled in an American West which is dangerously too real, and a fate which has led him to a cold prison cell and the threat of the gallows. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1877946672
• ISBN13: 9781877946677
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Permanent Press (NY)
• Length: 345 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Seeing into the Soul of America

Excellent book. Albert has created an unusual, interesting and sympathetic protagonist who takes us on a bumpy ride through turn-of-the-century America. During our travels we explore some of the fundamental forces that shaped our country -- immigration, the spirit of the great West, and the tug of rugged individualism versus socialist demands for collective protection of human rights -- forces that still resonate loudly...