Wild Bunch Women

by Michael Rutter

Explore the lives of the pistol-packing, hell-raising, high-spirited gals who hung out with Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch outlaw gang.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, True Crime

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2003

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Michael Rutter has authored or co-authored nearly 40 books and 600 articles for magazines and newspapers. He was awarded the Ben Franklin Award for Outdoor Writing and the Rocky Mountain Book Publishers Association Award. Michael teaches advanced writing at Brigham Young University. He is also a Christa McAuliffe Fellow.

Reviews

[Claudia Putnam]

Yet another pile of speculative horseshit by someone w a man crush on Butch et al. Ex: Ann Bassett was "too witchy and shrewish" for these thugs (excuse me, er, gentlemen bandits) to have put up w her for long, therefore she cannot have been the so-called Etta Place. Look, I don't think she was EP, either, but that's a hooey reason, even if it were true. Anyway she wasn't too witchy and shrewish to have been their lifelong friend. Speculatively. According to him.

Wouldn't it be great if someone w some actual credentials as an academic/biographer wrote one of these outlaw books instead of this endless slew of amateurs under the spell of the bullshit legend. Or at least a folklorist who could do a little meta-analysis? Aren't people in liberal arts running out of thesis ideas? Well, the accumulation of detritus around Butch Cassidy and similar ambiguous hero-thugs is just waiting to be tackled.

If you know a lot about this topic there are a few details to be sifted from this book. Possibly. Otherwise skip it. You'll know less than when you started.

[Little Timmy]

Nice quick read. Good historical overview of the women that ran with the Wild Bunch. Recommended

[Jamie]

I love to read books based in the areas I happen to be. Since I was in Utah, this was a fun read by the pool to learn more about the Wild Bunch women that truly helped fuel this western gang. It was cool to read about places I knew in Colorado and Wyoming and even drove through some of the locations the next day!

[Miss Clark]

2.5 - 3 stars

Well researched and engaging. Lots of new information I had never known. Elizabeth was the most interesting of the lot!

[Leah Rich]

Neither eloquent or factual, this book does not have authority or much beauty to it. It doesn’t feel like justice for these women's stories is done and there's quite alot about the men. This author also has some pretty outdated and objectifying terms for women that don’t fit the norm. Women who can’t be “tamed or broken”, along with soiled doves, women of the night, witchy, shrewd, the list goes on and on. This author doesn’t have any cited sources or qualifications for writing historical texts but his one saving grace is that he reminds you that almost all of the book is speculative. It’s an ok read if you have no other books around and take his word usage and stories with a big old lick of salt.

[Louise Carlson Stowell]

After reading "Etta Place" by Drago, I thought that even though it was about several different Wild Bunch Women, the information on Etta Place was much more accurate. The women really come alive on the page and Mr. Rutter has done an excellent job of giving us actual living characters instead of fictionalized ones. He describes the hardships and everyday lives of these women... Annie Rogers (Kid Curry's love), Elizabeth Bassett (the big sister to the Wild Bunch), Fanny Porter... and the courage and raw stamina it took to live in the rugged Brown's Hole area which borders on Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.

A great read.

[Virginia Franklyn]

Not exactly a meticulously researched volume on the women in the West. Lots of speculation. However, it was very readable and interesting. I liked that the author tried to make the subjects as human as possible. It's so strange to me that these women lived in a West that was so raw and untamed little more than a century ago. Good, quick read.

[Maleah W.]

Great non-fiction! I didn't exactly know what to expect from it, but I read it in almost three days' time. Very educational, but not boring whatsoever! The writing style was just story-like enough that it made it very interesting and almost like you were reading a novel! It really shows how hard these women had it and how tough and determined they were. I would definitely recommend it!

[Michael McCune]

I don’t think Rutter claims to be the scholar many of the negative reviews complain that he is not. This book, as well as Outlaw Tales of Utah, should be enjoyable for anyone who would like to know more of the folklore and legends surrounding these figures so that they have more campfire stories up their sleeve.

[Debbie Turner]

This book reminded me of a bunch of short stories, one after the other. The book didn't progress like a book, often referring to things that were in previous chapters as if they were new events. Interesting. Quick read. I picked it up a few years ago while staying in Texas.

[Tatiana Torres]

For a book titled Wild Bunch Women the content is largely about the men they traveled with and the content that is about the women doesn't seems to have been thoroughly researched. A lot "was it X? We'll never know". Save yourself time and the content is probably the same on Wikipedia

[Laura]

Clearly written from a male perspective on women. I winced at the frequent over-use of “prostitute”, “soiled dove” and “moll”. The use of language in this book was corny and hard to get through. Some facts needed checking as well.

[Brianna Jensen]

Not a lot of happy endings in this book obviously as a lot of the women end up living hard lives but a really interesting and informative read! I enjoyed how the author really brought these characters to life.

[Julie Daneman]

Interesting history of the women who kept company with Butch Cassidy and Sundance.

[Amy Moniz]

Interesting to find out how the Wild Bunch fell in love and treated their women.

[Ellen]

Interesting stories about women born in a different world and the ways they found to survive and thrive.

[Faith]

An interesting read about women who made the west wild, felt a little more editorial than I like, but very intriguing nonetheless.

[Laura Forner]

Girl power!
Women were indispensable to the Wild Bunch, and this is a fun insight into those very women.

[Ellen Reed]

Interesting to learn about the women attached to the historic figures we hear so much about.

[Sue Schleeter]

It was fun to read about these women and how they met the outlaws

[Maria Keenan]

I love this type of history but this book was genuinely so poorly written and very clearly written by a man

[Leigh]

While this book was interesting, there was quite a bit of repeating of details. None-the-less it was fun, entertaining, and quick read.

[Travelmaven]

Short bios on women who lived with or near outlaw gangs in the late 1800s.

[Amy]

Long on supposition and thin on facts.

[Amy]

It's a nice book. I don't know if I had heard about the Wild Bunch Gang before, although I have heard of the members. (Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, etc)

This book talks about the women in their lives, both wives, lovers and women who helped them. It was interesting to read about the lives of women in the past in this area of the country.

Sticklers of facts be warned! There is quite a bit of supposition in this book, I think in order to bring some 'humanity' to the facts. In my personal opinion it's a bit too much, but I can live with it.

[Megan Arendt]

My mom gave me the book for a quick read. Much of the content was based off legends and not facts so I didn't get much historical knowledge from this book. However, I knew nothing about the Wild Bunch (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) so I found it interesting, some of the stories about the Wild West and how people lived in the late 1800s to early 1900s.

[Denise]

This was a nice over view of the women beside the men. It makes me want to look into all of thier lives even more. I did feel at time that the author read into what woman would most likely do, he might be right but I'm not sure he was drawing from an educated guess but more a sterotype.
Over all a good "starter" book and glad ot add it to my colleciton of women in history books.

[Barb]

I read this on vacation in Wyoming after picking it up at the Jim Gatchell Museum in Buffalo. It was a quick read and rather entertaining. I learned a little bit about the Wild Bunch members like Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. Many of these women lived very hard and sad lives, but they make for interesting stories.

[Paula]

I was pretty disappointed with this book and the information in it. There is way to much speculation and not nearly enough fact. So many of the sentences resembled, "If the story is true..." The author handed out theory after theory on these women, but seems not much is really known, or at least wrangled up by this author.

[Jessica]

This book serves as a basic overview that is quick to read but not very in-depth. I was disappointing by the lack of factual evidence cited and by the amount of speculation. There are better titles out there on this subject matter.