Dozens of books and films and even songs later, a fog of myth
swirls around the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Here, western
scholar Marks (St. Edward's Univ. in Austin) offers a reasoned and
deeply researched popular study of the origins, events, and
aftermath of that bloody shootout that made household names of
Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holliday. Not for Marks are the
Olympian heroics of John Ford's film My Darling Clementine (with
Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp) or the bitter noirisms of Loren D.
Estleman's novel Bloody Season. Rather, she aims for historical
realism, with a strong nod to socioeconomic factors: "The story. .
.is one of a confused and complex scramble for money and power."
Within that scramble, Marks finds a watershed struggle - often
fought with blurred lines - between country and city, cowboy and
town businessman, rustler and lawman (usually a "shootist," like
Wyatt, "a perfect example of the western peripheral man, treading
the thin line between law and lawlessness, respectability and
notoriety"). In prose that serviceably mortars myriad bits of
bright detail, Marks re-creates Tombstone - its dusty streets,
violent bars, whores - from the ground up, erecting a vivid
backdrop for the arrival in the 1870's of the ambitious Earp
brothers and viciously alcoholic Holliday and for their inexorable
march to showdown With the ranching - and probably rustling -
Clantons and McLaurys (although the actual shootout may have been
"just an accident," Marks believes, caused by the Earps' misreading
a McLaury move). In lengthy conclusion, Marks ably runs down the
subsequent murder inquest, the later careers of the principals
(Wyatt moved to L.A., where he lived until 1929), and the growth of
the legend. The real McCoy. Marks even lets us know that the
gunfight occurred not at the O.K. Corral but nearby, and is
properly "the gunfight in the vacant lot between Fly's and
Harwood's" - though no less dramatic for that. An admirable and
painstaking reconstruction, then, and a thoughtful treat for
serious western fans. (Kirkus Reviews)
The gunfight at the O.K. Corral has excited the imaginations of
Western enthusiasts ever since that chilly October afternoon in
1881 when Doc Holliday and the three fighting Earps strode along a
Tombstone, Arizona, street to confront the Clanton and McLaury
brothers. When they met, Billy Clanton and the two McLaurys were
shot to death; the popular image of the Wild West was reinforced;
and fuel was provided for countless arguments over the characters,
motives, and actions of those involved.
"And Die in the West" presents the first fully detailed,
objective narrative of the celebrated gunfight, of the tensions
leading up to it, and the bitter, bloody events that followed.
Paula Mitchell Marks places the events surrounding the gunfight
against a larger backdrop of a booming Tombstone and the fluid,
frontier environment of greed, factions and violence. In the
process, Marks strips away many of the myths associated with the
famous gunfight and of the West in general.
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