The Lives and Times of Bonnie & Clyde

by E.R. Milner

Book Overview

Relying on primary sources-- oral history interviews, personal memoirs, newspaper articles, official records, diaries, and letters-- E. R. Milner cuts through myth and legend to create this startling portrait of the real Bonnie and Clyde. In his prologue, Milner introduces Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, showing them as they drive along a rural Louisiana lane toward the ambush that would put a dramatic end to their turbulent lives of crime. Milner...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809319772
• ISBN13: 9780809319770
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

It'll change your perspective on Hollywood's Bonnie & Clyde!

This is some amazing reading! Milner covers every little detail and covers their lives chronologically. Every getaway, heist, route taken and shot fired is covered in this excellent crime bio. A real thriller. I couldn't stop reading it. One comes away with a new perspective on this deadly duo. Bringing in all the other members of the gang in various small holdups, it brings to focus that they were not like the Hollywood darlings on the screen, but cold-blooded and ruthless killers. They were akin to desperate rats hanging on day to day. Full of fast cars, bullets and blood, this is one of the finest crime accounts I've ever read. A real page turner and barn burner!

Revision

I would like to add a bit of a caveat to my statements in my "It's on Film" review, regarding what Ivan Methvin may have said about the ambush. My father recently confirmed that Ivan was a inveterate liar and could not be relied upon for reliable information. It was irresponsible for me to repeat heresay information concerning events damaging to the reputation of honorable men like Ted Hinton, Bob Alcorn and Frank Hamer. In addition, it was highly speculative of me to suggest that Hinton filmed the actual ambush as if he had nothing better to do than tinker with a movie camera while sitting in the bushes sweating along with the others. However, while understandable concerning the circumstances, if is unfortunate that Bonnie was killed instead of arrested. She had no means of escape, Clyde, her gunman and driver, was killed instantly. It was reported by the ambush gunmen that Bonnie was holding a BAR when she was shot, however I am inclined to believe Floyd Hamilton who stated it was most likely a romance magazine.

Loose ends? Maybe. Good solid facts? Definately.

Yes, it is true that this book has a few loose ends, but it also has some good soid facts combined with graphic pictures (which I always find appealing in a book). I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I think anyone would. In response to one reviewer who commented on the book only tracking the "death car" for about 20 years, Bonnie and Clyde's authentic "death car", bullets holes and all, is currently displayed in a Prim, Nevada casino. If you're ever in the area, it's a good thing to see.

Its on Film

This book confirmed what has always been an accepted fact in my family, that Bonnie was basically executed. My grandfather worked at the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant (LAPP - located about 10 miles west of Minden and 30 miles northwest of the death site) in the 1940s and was well acqainted with Henry and Ivan Methvin who ran a cafe near the plant. Ivan Methvin said that Bonnie was shot while she sat in the car screaming after Clyde had been shot in the head. He also said that Ted Hinton's movie camera was up and running and filmed the whole thing. The Hinton family has the film and has not to my knowledge ever released any of the footage accept the 20-30 seconds that shows up occasionally on television documentaries. All this shows is a quick scan of the death car with a bullet riddled Bonnie slumped over. The actual film is said to be 8 to 10 minutes. It is doubtful that Hinton would have preoccupied himself with a movie camera or would have been skillful or lucky enough to set up a tripod that caught the scene of death. However it is interesting that the Hinton family has not released additional footage. My grandfather also stated that at one time Methvin actually said that Clyde and Bonnie were stood up against the car and shot, and of course we know that wasn't true. One thing this book left out was W.D. Jones demise. Jones was at various times addicted to alcohol and drugs (morphine and demerol) after his days with Bonnie and Clyde. In Houston, in 1974, he was killed with a shotgun by an acqaintance over a drug transaction.

This is a sublime book about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow

If Bonnie & Clyde's story appeals to you, this book should come as the very best of surprises. It is a high-quality hardbound publication (Univ. of Southern Illinois University Press, 1996) that is beautifully done in all regards. Milner has done his homework.. this is an objective, well-researched and (above all) accurate study about the bloody Barrows. It is not a sympathetic treatment although the reader learns in this book that Clyde and Bonnie were, after all, very real people.. 62 years after Emma Parker and Nell Barrow Cowan did so in "Fugitives" (1934), Milner accomplishes the task of turning them into the mortals that they were. Thank you, Mr. Milner. The pair's background has always been rife with ambiguities and allegations: was Clyde an effeminate, incompetent punk with 'homosexual tendencies'? Did Bonnie change from a loyal and devoted daughter, sister and aunt into a cold-blooded killer? We are introduced here to two young people and their culture, which derived from the slums which comprised West Dallas, Texas (pop. 5,000,c. 1932) in the 1920's and 30's and therein lies the key to what makes this book really work. A professor of history at Tarrant College in Fort Worth, the author brings them to life by deftly recreating the era, which quickly becomes much less distant and remote... and they are all the more fascinating for it. Through understanding the period and social climate of West Dallas in those austere times, the reader views Clyde's life after 17 like a car wreck in slow-motion. We grow up with them, get to know about their families and learn precisely how things came to happen as they did. Debunked and free of myth and romance, the intrigue is still there. This is also a love story gone wrong. Milner is an analyst as well as reporter, and he makes some keen observations, theorizing (correctly) that the allure of this pair is inextricably linked to a powerful romantic aura. When the couple fulfilled Bonnie's self-prophecy by dying virtually in one another's arms, the die was cast. I have been of the opinion for some time that Clyde was certainly a sociopath, at best. That is highly arguable, based upon the facts that are responsibly presented here. Nor was the man gay. As a teenager, he was sodomized in prison; I can't determine how this rumor has managed to persist for so long, when there has never been anything substantial in his history to support it. At 16, he became infatuated with a girl from Wichita Falls and persuaded her to move to Dallas, where they lived together as man and wife for several months before she was located by her parents. She was followed on the author's timeline by a serious involvement with his first true love, who was supplanted by yet another deep love interest. Bonnie emerges as feminine, good natured and highly likeable. Her 1926 high school portrait, included here, depicts a very pretty girl who has indeed been forced to grow up too fast. Women of the day also