Book Review: Kiss of Life: The Untold Saga of America's Last Outlaws by Gene O'Neill, Gord Rollo

 

Kiss of Life: The Untold Saga of America's Last Outlaws by Gene O'Neill, Gord Rollo

Paperback, 261 pages

Published March 2021 by Omnium Gatherum

This is an interesting review for me to write. I am not anti-western; in fact, I like lots of westerns and I actually have a track record of enjoying Westerns written by genre writers. Perhaps my favorite examples are Richard Matheson and John Shirley, the latter of which wrote a similar historical western novel Wyatt in Witchita a few years back. That said it is not exactly my favorite genre to read.

I admit Gord Rollo is not a name I know, but Gene O’Neill is what got my attention with this book. Gene is the author of one of my all-time favorite short stories, The Burden of Indigo. His work is consistently great, and I think he is an underrated voice in dark fiction.  Since it had a horror publisher, I thought going into this that it might crossover genres like Matheson’s Shadow on the Sun. No, this is a pretty straightforward historical western novel that tells the lesser-known moments of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

I get the feeling fans of the Paul Newman/ Robert Redford movie might be more interested and while I like many movies of that era it is just one I have never seen.  This appears to be a more gritty take although there is fun to be had. The structure is back and forth from modern to classical feeling. The framing device is a modern descendent of the outlaws traveling companion Erta Place. Her name is  Jessica the idea of her telling the stories as she heard them passed down from Erta gives them a unique Point of view, very different from the classic movie.  The idea being Erta who was there till the bitter end was left out of the narrative.

Not sure the framing device will work for everyone, as there are not really stakes to the modern story elements.  I don’t know the story of how this collaboration happened and I ended up being a bit more curious about that than the notorious outlaws. I think fans of the characters and movie will not want to miss this. I admit I was hooked because of my respect for Gene O’Neill. Not sure the book would have grabbed me without that connection.

It is clearly deeply researched, it feels lived in, and I respect that as well. It is a good novel about topics and eras I don’t have much interest in. So the fact that I read the whole thing and enjoyed is a testament to the hard work. I recommend it to western fans and devotees of the movie, I am not sure there is a crossover for most genre readers that read my blog. I am always down for Gene O’Neill personally.