Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Book

I fell in love with this book on the first page, with the opening lines,

"He was growing into middle age and was living then in a bungalow on Woodland Avenue. Green weeds split the porch steps, a wasp nest clung to an attic gable, a rope swing looped down from a dying elm tree and the ground below it was scuffed soft as flour."

There begins a master class in description that continues until the novel's end, and the environment becomes almost as large a character as the protagonist himself as Hansen blends fiction, myth, and fact in the telling of final years of Jesse James.

There's a beautiful pace to the story that matches that of the era. The story rarely gallops but instead focuses on the key moments in the build up to the critical event of the title. And this should not be considered a criticism. This is not a story of gimmicks and quick cuts, of action and surprises, though there is enough gun-play to satisfy fans of the western genre. The title ensures that you are already party to the story's biggest surprise. Instead you enter into this world as a historian fly on the wall, have your senses ignited, and observe the downfall of a man many thought was great, at the hands of a lesser man who felt himself bound for greatness.

It is a novel about the building of icons and the iconoclasts who would face them, with the final third dealing with the Ford brothers' celebrity after the assassination. In re-telling the story this way Hansen reveals the differences between fame and notoriety, and the pitfalls of grandiose youth wanting a shortcut to celebrity still present in society today.

If there's a criticism at all it's that the typeface in the paperback version is quite small, making the book seem endless - though perhaps this is a gift in a strange way too. But if you can deal with this, and accept the pace and heavy description this is a rewarding novel about a fascinating time in history.