Belle Starr: The Truth Behind the Wild West Renegade

The lurid reputation of a famed outlaw is energetically fact-checked by historian Wallis (The Best Land Under Heaven) in this diligent account. In his attempt “to unravel the... legend” of Belle Starr (the so-called “female Jesse James”), Wallis retires many baseless falsehoods while rendering a sympathetic portrait of a woman hardened by conflict and loss. Missouri-born Myra Shirley took her first step into outlawhood in 1863, when at 15 years old she swore to avenge the death of her Confederate soldier brother at the hands of Union troops. For a time she couriered intelligence for local Confederate guerillas, but her family eventually fled to Scyene, Tex., “a refuge for hell-bent ruffians” and anti-Union rebels. After the war, a brief stint at farming with husband James Reed was upended when he turned to bootlegging, a path which set Shirley on an escalating progression of brushes with the law, almost all of which, Wallis reports, had to do with her series of outlaw husbands’ activities (which were quite spectacular and did involve the likes of Jesse James). It was a falsified 1889 New York Times obituary that basically invented the “Bandit Queen” mythos from whole cloth, Wallis asserts. But even stripped of exaggeration, this tale of a proper Southern lady who adopted an unconventional lifestyle and a taste for anarchic, violent men rivets. (June)