West Like Lighting: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express
Jim DeFelice
History
The historiography of the American West is debated territory. On one side are the mythologizers; on the other, the debunkers. Good books that take the middle ground are few and far between. West Like Lightning tries, but Jim DeFelice's heart is with the mythmakers.
Mind you, it's an easy read; it's just a rather lightweight one. DeFelice structures his book by following the course of an express rider from east to west, draping it as he goes with local color, geography, stories, outtakes, and whatnot. Periodically he veers back in time to go into the Pony's founding, or forward to look at its ultimate fate. He's actually pretty scrupulous about what he claims as actual unvarnished fact; on the other hand, he's fairly liberal in including (admittedly with proper caveats) the inevitable there's-no-proof-it-didn't-happen excursions.
DeFelice, in other words, mainly wants to tell a good yarn. (He's a thriller writer, and it shows. Many academic historians eschew terms like "pucker factor" and "major badass", for example. Go figure.) He did his homework, then decorated it extensively to produce a book that's amiable, discursive, lively, and lightweight.
No comments:
Post a Comment