The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid

by Bill Brooks

Book Overview

Midnight, July 14, 1881. Two men, both legends, meet for what they believe will be their last time. Then they go their separate ways, to lead completely different lives.William H. Bonney and Sheriff Pat Garrett. One goes on to become the stuff of dime novels and myth, the other, the most despised man in New Mexico. William H. Bonney is given his freedom by his old poker and whiskey buddy under oath he never return to New Mexico again. Sheriff Garrett...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312875088
• ISBN13: 9780312875084
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Forge
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Billy Brooks is right with Billy the Kid

Excellent book especially in light of new facts re: Billy the Kid and his 'death'. Bill Brooks is an exceptional author and you can't go wrong with any of his books..especially the Westerns. jm

A Contemporary Classic

Brooks'new novel is a poetic tour de force, a literary exploration of the old west as only the most playful and -- simultaneously -- the most poignant imagination could bring to it. I was captured from the first sentences: a dead Billy the Kid -- or perhaps not-dead Billy the Kid -- denies all, recalls all. This is not your father's Western. It has little likeness to the traditional genre, but it has everything to do with contemporary literature, that kind of delightful exploration of truth which is always multiple and never quite certain of itself. Brooks is able to make Billy the Kid a vulnerable, wistful poet of sorts, one who reads Shakespeare and Voltaire, and who kills villains only when forced to. This Billy the Kid is sometimes lonely, sometimes stupid, sometimes conflicted, but always full of a wistful reflection on the human condition, and always full of sad dreams, "like a bird whose wings are boken," as Brooks puts it. In the end, a dying Billy recognizes in his journal that "All the words in the world cannot tell the true story of even a single life." The only problem with this novel was that it had to end.