Epitaph audiobook

Note: This is the second of a two-part 'series' that began with DocAs it says in this book, “Every Tombstone needs an Epitaph”. This is said about the newspaper John Clum decided to establish in Tombstone, Arizona. The year was 1880 and the Earp brothers were already getting themselves set up in the town with their wives.We learn more about the wives of the Earps (most of them through common law) and what their experiences were during this time of boom and bust that the American frontier was experiencing. We find out more about their backgrounds, where they came from, and their families.We also learn more about the notoriously fascinating 30 seconds that is still talked about, analyzed, and argued: the shootout at the O. K. Corral. Although it actually took place closer to the back of the Photography shop, the shop’s name was too long and not euphonious, so the O. K. Corral it became and will likely always remain so.Although the worst of the “Cow Boys” (which is what they called themselves and were referred to by others) were not the ones killed at the O. K. Corral, the instigators were decidedly drunk and refusing to give up their weapons in the town. Wyatt Earp was a Marshall and had deputized his brothers Morgan and Virgil as well as Doc Holliday to help disarm the men and send them on their way. The action was taken due to pleas and pressure by the mining magnate of the area whose pay strongboxes were targets. Wells Fargo was also requesting help to prevent the Cow Boys from stealing the strongboxes they transported. There were many local businesses and ordinary citizens who had also had enough of being terrorized by this outlaw element.It is interesting that with so many people – even influential people - urging that the laws be upheld, and to do whatever it took to make that happen, there was not only an inquest but also a trial, with Wyatt Earp and his deputies the accused. The Judge could see clearly what was happening and found in favour of the lawmen. Unfortunately, that only added more fuel to the threats and altercations that made life in Tombstone so treacherous for those who were attempting to make it a safer place to live.Then, a couple of severe attacks on the Earp brothers took place that changed Wyatt Earp completely. He was finished with being quiet, polite, and using his inner authority to persuade outlaws to move on. He was fueled by a rage he could no longer contain – even had he wanted to.The research and writing of this book is Mary Doria Russell at her best. The saga unfolds with perfect pacing – times of intense action or suspense merge seamlessly with idyllic and sweet moments. The story continues on – past Tombstone and into other towns and cities-to-be that are experiencing booms, one after the other. Then comes the big bust – twenty years after the national economic disasters of 1873, the same thing happens in 1893.Ms Russell carries us along with her momentum as we read the stories of some of America’s most famous – and infamous – outriders and would-be entrepreneurs of the late 1800's through to their own time of epitaphs. In the case of some of them, such as Doc Holliday, this came at a young age. In the case of Wyatt Earp and his wife, Josie (aka Sadie to those who loved her), much later in life.I loved this book. The story and how it is told within these pages was completely engaging for me, and I would definitely recommend it to people who enjoy fact-based historical fiction that is beautifully written, and where we are invited to experience a time in history that continues to ignite the imagination over one hundred years later.

”To understand the gunfight in Tombstone, stop — now — and watch a clock for thirty seconds. Listen to it tick while you try to imagine one half of a single minute so terrible it will pursue you all your life and far beyond the grave."One of the things I find fascinating about the ‘Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'* is how the same set of facts can be presented to show one side or the other as the ‘good guys’ or the ‘bad guys’. Were the Earps and Doc Holliday heroes who fearlessly faced down some dastardly cattle rustlers and thieves, or were they corrupt opportunists who essentially murdered some innocent ranchers as part of their efforts to take over the town of Tombstone?As with most things the reality probably lies somewhere in the middle, and what Mary Doria Russell has done so brilliantly with this historical fiction is to show us a version that feels a lot more true than many of the non-fiction accounts that ascribe some kind of agenda to the actions of those involved. Her depiction here shows all the participants not as mythical incorruptible Western lawmen nor mustache twirling villains. Instead, she tells a story in which they are just flawed people who found themselves at a nasty intersection of local politics, business, and crime that led to series of events that eventually found a group of men trading bullets in a vacant lot that was unfortunately just the beginning of even more violence that would cost them dearly.The previous Russell book Doc focused on John Henry Holliday and his friendship with the Earps through their days in Dodge City. This one puts Wyatt in the forefront, but like Doc we get the viewpoints of many characters. For example, a lot of the story comes to us via Josie Marcus, the woman who left Sheriff John Behan for his political rival Wyatt which was another key factor in escalating the tensions in Tombstone. The first part of the book that details the events leading up to the infamous gunfight is a stew of conflicting agendas enhanced by post-Civil War grudges and shady political moves that combine until even the most frantic stirring couldn’t keep that particular pot from boiling over. A lot of this reminded me of HBO’s Deadwood in the way that various schemes play out. There’s also distinct parallels to American society today like the town’s two competing newspapers choosing sides and trying to spin events like a cable news network.Another interesting aspect is how much time is spent on what happened after the gunfight, and unlike some versions such as the film Tombstone which glamorized the ‘vendetta ride of Wyatt Earp’ this story dwells instead on the immense price that everyone involved paid in one way or another. The book pretty much destroys the romanticized myth of the Old West in which disputes can be permanently settled by showdowns at high noon, and instead presents the much messier reality in which violence kicks off revenge cycles when there’s no strong authority around to put a stop to the whole mess. Although the Earps and Doc Holliday are definitely the heroes of this story Russell deglamorizes them as legends. Instead she skillfully and compassionately shows how their complicated lives and a variety of good and bad decisions led them to that pivotal thirty seconds, and how those moments haunted and defined their reputations forever afterwards.* - It’s common knowledge that the shooting didn’t actually happen at the OK Corral, but as Russell writes, “…..it took too long to set the type for 'Gunfight in the Vacant Lot Behind Camillus Fly’s Photography Studio Near Fremont Street.'”

I really wanted to fall in love with this book, but all the way through I felt that Russell hadn't quite been sure whether she was writing a novel or a biography of Wyatt Earp's life. While large sections of the book were near-perfectly written, others were frustrating slow or - particularly in the case of the final 50 or so pages - almost unnecessary.

Beneath history, memory and forgetting.Beneath memory and forgetting, life.Paul Ricoeur Mary Doria Russell could not have selected a finer epigraph to preface her retelling of those thirty seconds on that Tombstone October afternoon in 1881.The final sixty pages of Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral are a cautionary tale of what lies beneath history: legends spun from nostalgia. Perhaps it seems odd that I would begin by telling you of the end, but this novel is funny like that. We already know something of the end of the most famous gun battle of the American West, don’t we? It has become so fixed in our pop culture lore that just the mention of The O.K. Corral conjures up sepia-toned visions of hot, dusty streets, sun-scoured faces under sweat-soaked wide-brimmed hats, holsters slung low, voices that growl, mouths that spit, hands moving in a blur, as fast as the bullets that inevitably fly from Colt revolvers. It is easy to forget that once you scrape away the patina of lore, pale flesh and brittle bones are all that remain. And so Russell does the scraping away for us, showing us the final years of Josephine “Sadie” Marcus and Wyatt Earp, the last legends standing, and how their history entered the lexicon of lore that holds our imaginations still, 130 years later. Beneath memory and forgetting, human beings.With sweeping vivacity, Epitaph tells the story of all that leads up to and follows from that infamous shoot-out. As brief as the actual event itself may have been, it was frontloaded with politics and culture, egos and dreams. You will meet a large cast of characters, but Russell is so generous with her time, you will come to know their distinct personalities and where they fit into this epic. Four central characters hold most of the spotlight: Josie Marcus, the young daughter of a Polish immigrant, a dreamer whose formless ambition leads her into the arms of Johnny Behan, an irascible Irish schemer who seeks alliances with those whom he can use to further his political agenda, such as the taciturn, morally square Wyatt Earp, whose tenderness is reserved for his posse of brothers, and for the tubercular and refined Doc Holliday. From these four spring a host of lawmen, outlaws, steadfast women, weak-minded pols, and a natural world that is as unforgiving and changeable as law and order in the Old West. In her Author’s Note, Mary Doria Russell explains she worked through nineteen linear feet of research material to write Epitaph. Woven into the narrative are the political and cultural machinations at work in post-Civil War America, including the local and national scrabbling between Democrats and Republicans, gun control and gangs, women asserting their independence, drugs, gambling, corruption—all against the backdrop of fervent expansion and fortunes made and lost in a mine or a bar, in a heartbeat or a long, slow, painful death. Beneath history, we have our storytellers. And Mary Doria Russell is among the finest. Where once I resisted reading Doc , Russell’s 2011 gorgeous rendering of the life and times of John Henry “Doc” Holliday, because I just didn’t read “westerns,” I could not wait to wrap my hands and heart around Epitaph. If anything, the pleasure was more profound because the characters had already captured my imagination and the author, my trust. Since Doc, I’ve found rapture in several of her novels, most notably the transcendent The Sparrow and A Thread of Grace. There are few contemporary authors whom I find as spellbinding as Mary Doria Russell. The delight she takes in her stories and the depth of feeling she has for her characters, lift off the page and transport the reader into the heart of her world.Clear your calendar, shut out the world, settle in. Welcome to Tombstone.

I will preface this review by saying that I've been a bit obsessed, of late, with the life of John Henry "Doc" Holliday. I've read numerous books about him or involving him over the last two years or so: some of them historical novels, and some of them pure fantasy with Doc as a character in them. All of them please me, as they all portray him as a witty, grumpy, slowly-dying Southern gentleman of honor. But none of them, not a single one of them, has pleased me as much as this wonderfully-written novel.The backstory! Ye gods! So much backstory! In a less-capable author's hands, it could almost be said that there was too much backstory. But in Ms. Russell's artistic hands, there is no such thing as too much. We get to see the motivations and thought processes of so many characters, from bit players to main cast. And it's all beautiful. BEAUTIFUL.Doc himself, and the Earps, and the sinister "Cow Boys," the various ladyloves, the sheriffs and judges and newspapermen, the ranchers and miners, the politicians and prostitutes and bartenders, the Mexican desperados and the first-generation Americans seeking better lives: they are all explored, and cradled with such well-written prose.I'll end by saying this, and it is meant as the greatest compliment: this is the only story involving Doc Holliday that I've read which didn't star Val Kilmer as the dentist-cum-gambler/gunfighter/consumption-victim in my head. I didn't need the crutch of a familiar (if pale and sickly) face spouting lines with a debonair Georgian drawl. All I needed was the next chapter, the next page, the next line of dialogue, to paint his portrait for me.

Epitaph by Mary Doria Russell5 Stars and a heartLet me start by saying that I resisted with every ounce of my being reading Doc. While you all know I adore history, I’ve never been a fan of this particular era. Russell’s description of this era as one that “lived ugly but read romantic,” fits my view perfectly. However, I finally gave in, begrudgingly, and read Doc. One, I was mesmerized by Russell’s writing and have gone on to read everything she’s written except Children of God. I have absolutely adored every single work including Sparrow, which speaks volumes because I detest Sci-Fi even more than Westerns. This book was certainly no exception. Secondly, I immediately followed up Doc with a non-fiction read – The Last Gunfight by Jeff GuinnRussell picks up the story with the events that led to the famous shoot-out and delved into the lives of the men facing the Earps and Doc Holiday. But what was even more fascinating was following the events that occurred immediately after and haunted Wyatt and Josie for the remainder of their lives. It was particularly poignant to see how drastically these event changed Wyatt’s character. I certainly got a better understanding of what drove Doc and Wyatt apart after so many years of intense friendship. I also really appreciated Russell providing context for how national events influenced the Arizona atmosphere. Recently reading biographies on Presidents Garfield and Arthur lent itself to a better percipience of these influences. Where Russell was particularly enlightening was on the origins of the Posse Comitatus Act, which I’ve only viewed through a modern lens. Let me end by saying that I think Russell’s opening will remain one of the more memorable for me, “A century will pass, and decades more. Still, the living will haunt the dead as that half minute becomes entertainment for hundreds of millions around the world. Long after you die, you will be judged by those who cannot imagine standing six paces from armed and angry men. Not even for thirty seconds.” Maybe I should just go ahead and read Children of God.

If you think you know everything about the "Gunfight at the OK Corral," you might be tempted to take a pass on reading this book. Don't! This is the wild, wild West at its very worst - and frequently at its very best. Russell manages to take a myth-filled story and do two amazng thing with it. First, she sets it up in the context of national politics (always a nasty proposition). Personal, political ambition coupled with corporate profit (sound familiar?) tangle with individuals, personal rights and the growing pains of a still young country. Second, she takes the larger-than-life characters of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and makes them, well ordinary isn't quite the right word, but more like the rest of us. These are men (and their women) who love fiercely, gamble foolishly and make mistakes. And usually try to do the right thing. I'm not a person who reads Westerns, but that's not what this is. It's a terrific story set in the West. With cattle rustlers. And saloons. And faro games. And gun fights. But, it's not a Western. If you haven't read Russell's Doc yet, do so now! Right now. Doc is on my "Top 10 All Time" list, and Epitaph will now be on that list also.

one of the greatest books in years and the best Western since LONESOME DOVE. You owe it to yourself to read this amazing novel in which history comes blazingly alivd.