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Sundance
A gripping historical novel of love and vengeance starring Harry Longbaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid.
Legend has it that bank robber Harry Longbaugh and his partner Robert Parker were killed in a shootout in Bolivia. That was the supposed end of the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy.
Sundance tells a different story. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Longbaugh is very much alive, though serving in a Wyoming prison under an alias.
When he is released in 1913, Longbaugh reenters a changed world. Horses are being replaced by automobiles. Gas lamps are giving way to electric lights. Workers fight for safety, and women for the vote. What hasn’t changed are Longbaugh’s ingenuity, his deadly aim, and his love for his wife, Etta Place.
It’s been two years since Etta stopped visiting him, and, determined to find her, Longbaugh follows her trail to New York City. Confounded by the city’s immensity, energy, chaos, and crowds, he learns that his wife was very different from the woman he thought he knew. Longbaugh finds himself in a tense game of cat and mouse, racing against time before the legend of the Sundance Kid catches up to destroy him.
By turns suspenseful, rollicking, and poignant, Sundance is the story of a man dogged by his own past, seeking his true place in this new world.
Legend has it that bank robber Harry Longbaugh and his partner Robert Parker were killed in a shootout in Bolivia. That was the supposed end of the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy.
Sundance tells a different story. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Longbaugh is very much alive, though serving in a Wyoming prison under an alias.
When he is released in 1913, Longbaugh reenters a changed world. Horses are being replaced by automobiles. Gas lamps are giving way to electric lights. Workers fight for safety, and women for the vote. What hasn’t changed are Longbaugh’s ingenuity, his deadly aim, and his love for his wife, Etta Place.
It’s been two years since Etta stopped visiting him, and, determined to find her, Longbaugh follows her trail to New York City. Confounded by the city’s immensity, energy, chaos, and crowds, he learns that his wife was very different from the woman he thought he knew. Longbaugh finds himself in a tense game of cat and mouse, racing against time before the legend of the Sundance Kid catches up to destroy him.
By turns suspenseful, rollicking, and poignant, Sundance is the story of a man dogged by his own past, seeking his true place in this new world.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
March 7, 2018
”Longbaugh reacted, hand to gun, wrist-angle, trigger squeeze, mid-air smoke-splash, ear-slap bang, and the boy dropped, clothes off a clothesline, scarecrow off his cross, exhaling into the silent ground.”
Harry Longbaugh (Sundance Kid) and Etta Place.
Word has it that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died in a gunfight with government troops in Bolivia. The thing is, Butch and Sundance have escaped some perilous situations in the past. Charlie Siringo, Pinkerton Detective, for one, never gives up on the idea that the Bolivia report is smoke and mirrors. He knows these guys are smart enough to ascertain the opportunity that being “dead” presents to them.
Learning the truth has proven elusive. There is a part of me that wants to believe that Butch and Sundance weren’t there that day in Bolivia. I want to believe that they discovered that the only way to get their lives back was to give them up.
David Fuller wants to believe, too.
Harry Longbaugh spends enough time in prison that, when he is finally released in 1913, the world has changed enough to make aspects of it unrecognizable. It is comical and baffling for him to discover that a posse now chases after outlaws in horseless carriages. When he was caught he was booked under the name Alonzo, and the bureaucracy of the system never discovers that they have someone a lot more interesting than a petty criminal in their grasp.
They have the Sundance Kid.
When in prison, a person would like to think about their future, but they are trapped in an endless series of dead hours with more than enough time to brood about the past. The future is elusive and painful to try and wrap dreams around. His wife Etta comes to see him every week even though he keeps telling her to get on with her life. He loves her so much it hurts his heart to breath her name. Then one day she stops coming, and then one day her letters stop as well. He can fool himself for brief moments that he is happy for her, but the silence grates like ground glass in his stomach.
When he gets out, his first thought is to find Etta.
The Pinkerton’s never did close the file on Butch and Sundance, and even if they had, Siringo wouldn’t have.
Charles Siringo, he didn’t think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died in Bolivia.
Longbaugh discovers that Etta went to New York City, and before he can even get his bearings he is facing a feral gang of Italians, a raw version of the early days of the Mafia. How did Etta get herself caught up with such unprincipled, dangerous men? This man who survived the wild, wild west is trying to understand the underbelly of the East which is proving to be just as dangerous as the untamed parts of the West.
As it turns out, he stacks up just fine.
To further complicate his ability to find Etta, Siringo is dogging his trail intent on bringing him back to stand trial for who he really is.
Duchamp made the most sense to Sundance.
His search for Etta takes him from the reeking back alleys of the city to rub shoulders with the rich and the equally dangerous society of the rich and famous.
There is this interesting scene when Longbaugh is at a gala for impressionist paintings from Europe. ”The names of the artists were equally strange, and he wondered how to pronounce Matisse, Gauguin, Manet, Picasso. He had little experience with art; any ‘important’ paintings he had encountered generally portrayed some idealized realism, landscapes of the early West lit by orange-red sunsets with heroic clouds, implausible mountains, and unlikely cliffs. These were something else entirely, many of them almost childlike in their vision, yet they contained subject matter that was not for children. Confronted by colors and shapes that his own dreams could not have conjured, he was repelled and fascinated.”
He is so unnerved by what he is seeing that he feels for where his gun should be. This is what art is supposed to do, but only if people are willing to be receptive enough to feel slightly uncomfortable. To not understand what you see initially is the beginning of a new awareness.
This is a love story.
Don’t worry; there is nothing sappy about this love. It is legit and bone deep. In real life, Etta disappeared. Historians have been searching for her ever since. It is kind of interesting that we don’t know for sure what happened to Butch Cassidy and Harry Longbaugh, and then you add in the fact that Etta mysteriously disappears as well. This might be a book under the guise of fiction, but maybe, just maybe, Fuller has the story that really happened.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Harry Longbaugh (Sundance Kid) and Etta Place.
Word has it that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died in a gunfight with government troops in Bolivia. The thing is, Butch and Sundance have escaped some perilous situations in the past. Charlie Siringo, Pinkerton Detective, for one, never gives up on the idea that the Bolivia report is smoke and mirrors. He knows these guys are smart enough to ascertain the opportunity that being “dead” presents to them.
Learning the truth has proven elusive. There is a part of me that wants to believe that Butch and Sundance weren’t there that day in Bolivia. I want to believe that they discovered that the only way to get their lives back was to give them up.
David Fuller wants to believe, too.
Harry Longbaugh spends enough time in prison that, when he is finally released in 1913, the world has changed enough to make aspects of it unrecognizable. It is comical and baffling for him to discover that a posse now chases after outlaws in horseless carriages. When he was caught he was booked under the name Alonzo, and the bureaucracy of the system never discovers that they have someone a lot more interesting than a petty criminal in their grasp.
They have the Sundance Kid.
When in prison, a person would like to think about their future, but they are trapped in an endless series of dead hours with more than enough time to brood about the past. The future is elusive and painful to try and wrap dreams around. His wife Etta comes to see him every week even though he keeps telling her to get on with her life. He loves her so much it hurts his heart to breath her name. Then one day she stops coming, and then one day her letters stop as well. He can fool himself for brief moments that he is happy for her, but the silence grates like ground glass in his stomach.
When he gets out, his first thought is to find Etta.
The Pinkerton’s never did close the file on Butch and Sundance, and even if they had, Siringo wouldn’t have.
Charles Siringo, he didn’t think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died in Bolivia.
Longbaugh discovers that Etta went to New York City, and before he can even get his bearings he is facing a feral gang of Italians, a raw version of the early days of the Mafia. How did Etta get herself caught up with such unprincipled, dangerous men? This man who survived the wild, wild west is trying to understand the underbelly of the East which is proving to be just as dangerous as the untamed parts of the West.
As it turns out, he stacks up just fine.
To further complicate his ability to find Etta, Siringo is dogging his trail intent on bringing him back to stand trial for who he really is.
Duchamp made the most sense to Sundance.
His search for Etta takes him from the reeking back alleys of the city to rub shoulders with the rich and the equally dangerous society of the rich and famous.
There is this interesting scene when Longbaugh is at a gala for impressionist paintings from Europe. ”The names of the artists were equally strange, and he wondered how to pronounce Matisse, Gauguin, Manet, Picasso. He had little experience with art; any ‘important’ paintings he had encountered generally portrayed some idealized realism, landscapes of the early West lit by orange-red sunsets with heroic clouds, implausible mountains, and unlikely cliffs. These were something else entirely, many of them almost childlike in their vision, yet they contained subject matter that was not for children. Confronted by colors and shapes that his own dreams could not have conjured, he was repelled and fascinated.”
He is so unnerved by what he is seeing that he feels for where his gun should be. This is what art is supposed to do, but only if people are willing to be receptive enough to feel slightly uncomfortable. To not understand what you see initially is the beginning of a new awareness.
This is a love story.
Don’t worry; there is nothing sappy about this love. It is legit and bone deep. In real life, Etta disappeared. Historians have been searching for her ever since. It is kind of interesting that we don’t know for sure what happened to Butch Cassidy and Harry Longbaugh, and then you add in the fact that Etta mysteriously disappears as well. This might be a book under the guise of fiction, but maybe, just maybe, Fuller has the story that really happened.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Read
March 2, 2018Nope. Can't finish it. Sundance -- the book and the character -- bore me -- and I'm not easily bored. I read 150 pages and when I realized I had another 250 to go I knew I couldn't finish it. Instead I'm going to watch "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" -- again.
June 8, 2014
West meets East
“Sundance” is magical in many places as Fuller imagines an alternate future to Harry Longbaugh’s gun slinging past. The story begins with Harry leaving a twelve year stint in a Wyoming prison, a sentence he served under a pseudonym. To protect her he’s sent his beloved wife, Etta Place away, forbidding her from visiting him or writing to him for the last two years of his sentence. Naturally his first thought when they spring him is to reunite with her…but where is she? And so the adventure begins.
Sundance’s wife chase takes him to New York where blending in isn’t easy when you’re dressed like a desperado so he loses his chaps, boots and Stetson in favor of a navy blue suit. He’s also reevaluating what his skills are and how he fits in after so much time away and he doesn’t just have himself to worry about. The more clues he finds the more he becomes aware that Etta has changed as well and has her own adventure underway. Since Fuller is a screenwriter it’s hardly surprising how filmable the book reads. I kept picturing Redford aged by twelve years from his ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” role. How does an aging bank robber behave in the world of 1913 on the eve of World War I? We’re not on the outlaw trail any longer! Fuller’s story is as oddly realistic as it is fanciful and lots of fun.
Review based on an advance readers copy provided by the publisher.
“Sundance” is magical in many places as Fuller imagines an alternate future to Harry Longbaugh’s gun slinging past. The story begins with Harry leaving a twelve year stint in a Wyoming prison, a sentence he served under a pseudonym. To protect her he’s sent his beloved wife, Etta Place away, forbidding her from visiting him or writing to him for the last two years of his sentence. Naturally his first thought when they spring him is to reunite with her…but where is she? And so the adventure begins.
Sundance’s wife chase takes him to New York where blending in isn’t easy when you’re dressed like a desperado so he loses his chaps, boots and Stetson in favor of a navy blue suit. He’s also reevaluating what his skills are and how he fits in after so much time away and he doesn’t just have himself to worry about. The more clues he finds the more he becomes aware that Etta has changed as well and has her own adventure underway. Since Fuller is a screenwriter it’s hardly surprising how filmable the book reads. I kept picturing Redford aged by twelve years from his ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” role. How does an aging bank robber behave in the world of 1913 on the eve of World War I? We’re not on the outlaw trail any longer! Fuller’s story is as oddly realistic as it is fanciful and lots of fun.
Review based on an advance readers copy provided by the publisher.
July 22, 2015
I love westerns. That is why I was excited to read this book when I got a copy back when it was released. I started reading this book and got to about chapter 6 and then I had started to lose interest in the book. So I put is down which has ended up for about a year unread since that moment I put the book down. In an effort to try to dwindle my to be read pile and read some of my older books, I picked this book up again. I did not go back and re-read the first 5 chapters. I just started reading where I left off. After about reading 4 more chapters, I realized that while the background location, Etta, and Harry were fine, I had no real interest in anything that was really happening in the story. Plus, I found that the story seemed to drag on for long periods of time. I finally skipped ahead to the last chapter to see how the story ended. Which the ending was not bad.
dnf
July 23, 2015Just couldn't get into it, didn't really care for Fuller's writing style. Maybe if this had been grittier (and not in a roadside, child-rape kind of way) I coulda been into it. I guess I really want my Westerns to be in the West, with all that it implies. If this had been a prequel-type thing, maybe. But outlaws are most fascinating when they're at their glory of illegality. Or maybe it's just me...
August 4, 2016
One of my favorite films as a teenager was "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." I watched it so many times that I still have large sections of the dialogue memorized, so I was drawn to David Fuller's novel like the proverbial moth. Once I began reading, I fell headlong into the story. Watching Longbaugh make his first halting acquaintance to the new world around him felt true to his character and true to the period. As he tries to find Etta in the land he knows so well, he has time to ponder many things. Has he truly paid for all the crimes he's committed? What about the men in the gang who were never caught-- do they still have a debt to pay, or are they the better men for having not been imprisoned? He's also surprised that Etta has gone off to live her own life; in his mind she's like a fly suspended in amber, waiting for his return.
New York City intensifies the feeling of being displaced in time. Here crowds protest working conditions, and women are fighting for the vote, and it doesn't take him long to realize how much danger he's in while he searches for his wife because strong-minded Etta has made some enemies.
Sundance is a novel that satisfies on many levels. Although it's nowhere close to being an imitation of William Goldman's screenplay, Longbaugh will feel familiar to anyone who knows the 1969 film. It succeeds as a Western, particularly in the beginning just after Longbaugh is released from prison. It certainly succeeds in the mystery and adventure departments as he searches for Etta, and it is also quite the love story. Moreover, Sundance succeeds as the story of a man who finds that-- although he has so much life experience-- he still needs to seek his place in the world. David Fuller immersed me so completely in Harry Longbaugh's world, that it was a wrench for me to leave it.
New York City intensifies the feeling of being displaced in time. Here crowds protest working conditions, and women are fighting for the vote, and it doesn't take him long to realize how much danger he's in while he searches for his wife because strong-minded Etta has made some enemies.
Sundance is a novel that satisfies on many levels. Although it's nowhere close to being an imitation of William Goldman's screenplay, Longbaugh will feel familiar to anyone who knows the 1969 film. It succeeds as a Western, particularly in the beginning just after Longbaugh is released from prison. It certainly succeeds in the mystery and adventure departments as he searches for Etta, and it is also quite the love story. Moreover, Sundance succeeds as the story of a man who finds that-- although he has so much life experience-- he still needs to seek his place in the world. David Fuller immersed me so completely in Harry Longbaugh's world, that it was a wrench for me to leave it.
May 3, 2014
When I first dove into Sundance, I was expecting more about his life in the West. That's what happens when you don't read the book blurbs. After my initial letdown, I really started to enjoy the premise and direction this story took.
To displace Sundance into New York and have him experience Suffragette's, Working Class Rebellion, the Triangle disaster, and even Teddy Roosevelt, was a bold move and one I did not expect.
Sundance's struggle to find his own identity after prison is immediately complicated by someone looking to even a score from years before. This derailment sends the Kid on a path to discovery and redemption.
His once great skills as a gunfighter are no match for the back streets and mean denizens of New York. He's tried and tested, and at some parts bested in his struggle to reconnect with his wife.
Along the way he meets some new friends, has a drink with an old Hole in the Wall mate, and is pursued at every step by one man looking to put him in jail, and several looking to put him in the ground.
He is part philosopher, marriage counselor, and advocate for the poor.
To displace Sundance into New York and have him experience Suffragette's, Working Class Rebellion, the Triangle disaster, and even Teddy Roosevelt, was a bold move and one I did not expect.
Sundance's struggle to find his own identity after prison is immediately complicated by someone looking to even a score from years before. This derailment sends the Kid on a path to discovery and redemption.
His once great skills as a gunfighter are no match for the back streets and mean denizens of New York. He's tried and tested, and at some parts bested in his struggle to reconnect with his wife.
Along the way he meets some new friends, has a drink with an old Hole in the Wall mate, and is pursued at every step by one man looking to put him in jail, and several looking to put him in the ground.
He is part philosopher, marriage counselor, and advocate for the poor.
April 1, 2023
At least three stars for a surprisingly clever and well-written story, even allowing for a few too many coincidences. Fuller has done a lot of research, and does a good job bringing 1913 New Your City to life, much like Caleb Carr did in The Alienist, set less than a decade earlier.
But then at least another star just for being a novel about the Sundance Kid surviving Bolivia! Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid remains one of my favorite movies, and so Sundance makes a nice "alternative history" bookend to the underrated Sam Shepard film Blackthorne, which tells Butch's similar story of not dying when everyone thought he did.
The overall story involves a fairly thin plot, but Fuller's fine style and great ear for dialogue keep this a page-turner. Plus, Chapter 12 is a nice Easter egg - you'll know it when you see it!
But then at least another star just for being a novel about the Sundance Kid surviving Bolivia! Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid remains one of my favorite movies, and so Sundance makes a nice "alternative history" bookend to the underrated Sam Shepard film Blackthorne, which tells Butch's similar story of not dying when everyone thought he did.
The overall story involves a fairly thin plot, but Fuller's fine style and great ear for dialogue keep this a page-turner. Plus, Chapter 12 is a nice Easter egg - you'll know it when you see it!
June 17, 2014
What a great historical novel! This has it all, a wonderful immersion into old New York City, a great love story, and a character you will root for as he searches for the woman who stood by him until she suddenly disappeared. David Fuller is definitely a writer who knows his craft. I see a movie here!
Read
August 15, 2014Got within 24 pages of finishing this book. That was about 6 weeks ago, and I haven't picked it up since. I'm going to mark it "read" and let myself off the hook.
May 22, 2014
TL;DR: A good premise is mired by a lack of thematic thrust, schizophrenic style, and poor pacing. Ultimately, I think the novel is, to use Longbaugh’s parlance, much like a backyard pony: it tries awfully hard, but a Kentucky Derby winner it ain’t.
Once I finished Sundance, I had to take a little time to decide what I thought about the book. My initial reaction was dislike; in all honesty, Sundance wasn’t my cup of tea. I do like westerns (heck, my dissertation deals with them), but I absolutely gravitate toward “high lit” western writers like Cormac McCarthy, James Fennimore Cooper, and Doris Betts. This was one of my first forays into true forays into genre literature, and I found it unfortunately lacking. Though I engaged with the premise of the book, I found it to be stylistically chaotic, thematically shallow, oftentimes pedantic, and about 150 pages too long.
The Good: When Sundance is firing on all cylinders (galloping full-tilt?), it clearly shows Fuller’s considerable prowess as a writer. There are moments of sparkling brilliance in the book where Fuller completely captures the atmosphere of turn-of-the-century New York in a way that reminded me strongly of Anne Petry’s work. Fuller clearly knows his way around language, and he’s able to craft lovely sentences that pull you in and around the city. This was especially true in the burned building scene, where I was thrust into the narrative alongside Longbaugh through the author’s clever and powerful use of language.
Additionally, I think the premise of the book has massive amounts of appeal. In an era where many argue that the western is in decline, if not dead—a criticism I heartily disagree with—Fuller’s decision to turn to The Sundance Kid is a stroke of brilliance. He uses a character with his own mythology in order to construct a new mythology. I think this works well. From page one, I understood that I was dealing with an outlaw, no additional narrative detail necessary. Moving the Kid to New York also sets the stage for strong thematic resonances that, unfortunately, don’t really play out, but the core concept certainly had legs.
Lastly, Fuller’s meticulous research shines in Sundance. He clearly researched the period within an inch of its life, and that contributed greatly to the world of the novel. I found Theodore Roosevelt’s inclusion to be a particularly strong nod to this. Fuller casually mentions that Roosevelt was standing in the middle of the art gallery, which would have been absolutely true since Roosevelt wasn’t confined to a wheelchair until the 1920s. From a historiographical perspective, Sundance is truly brilliant.
The Bad: And yet, there are significant problems with the novel. I was especially disappointed with character development. Etta was the only character in the whole novel with any real depth, and we only see her in the concluding thirty or so pages of the novel. The other players in the novel read like walking, talking stereotypes, from the “lawman who understands the outlaw’s motivations” to the “Yankee profiteering gangster.”
This wouldn’t necessarily have been a problem if these derived from a conscious decision stylistically or thematically. However, Fuller never fully engages with any meaty themes, which was incredibly frustrating given that his novel’s premise sets the stage for some tenacious intellectual engagement. As I made my way through the novel, I kept hoping that Fuller would do something with the “close of the frontier” and the Turner doctrine, but he never does. In fact, Longbaugh—who has made his life in the West—feels little cognitive dissonance with the ways in which culture has progressed and left the mythic West behind. Instead of struggling with technological advancement and new social parameters, Longbaugh just…rolls with it.
This struck me as entirely unrealistic. Even contemporarily, longtime inmates struggle with reintegration after their release. That’s why the recidivism rates for people who serve long sentences is so high: they (re)enter a world that has long left them behind, and they miss the prison culture that they understand. Fuller had a chance to deal with some meaty historical and psychological topics through Longbaugh, but he is instead reduced to a static, one-track character. This is one example in a litany of issues—women’s rights, workers’ rights, modernity, corruption—that are only dealt with in passing. If Fuller wanted this novel to be what I call “Big L” Literature, he would have to deal with prescient issues more tenaciously and artfully.
I felt like Fuller tried to address this particular issue through a vignette approach to the plot, which didn’t quite work, either. Fuller cuts out lots of intermediary details in favor of writing scenes instead of narratives, a tack which I found rather inventive. However, it sometimes made the plot difficult to follow. Beyond that, there were some vignettes that felt completely out of place, like the sexual assault on the Native American girl in the opening of the novel. That felt like a gratuitous stab at grittiness, and it didn’t make a lick of difference to the plot.
The Ugly: Part of Fuller’s difficulty in engaging with larger issues in his novel comes from stylistic issues. In terms of style, I really didn’t like this novel. The writing swings wildly between McCarthy-esque sparseness to Faulknerian descriptiveness, which I found unpalatable. You could read three pages of stripped-down dialogue only to end up mired in four paragraphs of minute imagery. Fuller consciously engages with this style to emphasize the literariness of the book, which is no surprise given Fuller appears to be enamored with his own artistry (the author refers to Roosevelt as “T.R.” and explains that he drops the “a” from “Longabaugh” to make the “character his own” in the book’s acknowledgements. Both statements made me irrationally angry.) Anyway, I couldn’t quite figure out what Fuller was doing with these major style shifts, but it made the overall tone of the book disjointed and almost impossible to nail down.
The style issues were compounded by Fuller’s pacing. This book is, to put it bluntly, much too long. It drags out interminably, which I realized when I found myself deathly bored while reading about a gunfight! The book lacks the snappy action that characterizes strong western novels, and instead drags on before quickly shifting scene and setting. The experience was not unlike getting whiplash while somehow only traveling 25 miles per hour.
There’s so much more I could say about this novel and its plot—why even cameo Butch? Why not tie Moretti in with the British guy’s scheme at the end?—but I think I’ve said enough. If I was rating this book on my personal response to the text, it would get two stars, but I actually think that’s unfair. Fuller’s research is enough to give this book more clout than that, and like I mention earlier, this book does have moments of real brilliance. For those reasons, I think a three star review more accurately reflects the book as a whole.
Full disclosure: I read this book as an ARC for Penguin’s First to Read program.
Once I finished Sundance, I had to take a little time to decide what I thought about the book. My initial reaction was dislike; in all honesty, Sundance wasn’t my cup of tea. I do like westerns (heck, my dissertation deals with them), but I absolutely gravitate toward “high lit” western writers like Cormac McCarthy, James Fennimore Cooper, and Doris Betts. This was one of my first forays into true forays into genre literature, and I found it unfortunately lacking. Though I engaged with the premise of the book, I found it to be stylistically chaotic, thematically shallow, oftentimes pedantic, and about 150 pages too long.
The Good: When Sundance is firing on all cylinders (galloping full-tilt?), it clearly shows Fuller’s considerable prowess as a writer. There are moments of sparkling brilliance in the book where Fuller completely captures the atmosphere of turn-of-the-century New York in a way that reminded me strongly of Anne Petry’s work. Fuller clearly knows his way around language, and he’s able to craft lovely sentences that pull you in and around the city. This was especially true in the burned building scene, where I was thrust into the narrative alongside Longbaugh through the author’s clever and powerful use of language.
Additionally, I think the premise of the book has massive amounts of appeal. In an era where many argue that the western is in decline, if not dead—a criticism I heartily disagree with—Fuller’s decision to turn to The Sundance Kid is a stroke of brilliance. He uses a character with his own mythology in order to construct a new mythology. I think this works well. From page one, I understood that I was dealing with an outlaw, no additional narrative detail necessary. Moving the Kid to New York also sets the stage for strong thematic resonances that, unfortunately, don’t really play out, but the core concept certainly had legs.
Lastly, Fuller’s meticulous research shines in Sundance. He clearly researched the period within an inch of its life, and that contributed greatly to the world of the novel. I found Theodore Roosevelt’s inclusion to be a particularly strong nod to this. Fuller casually mentions that Roosevelt was standing in the middle of the art gallery, which would have been absolutely true since Roosevelt wasn’t confined to a wheelchair until the 1920s. From a historiographical perspective, Sundance is truly brilliant.
The Bad: And yet, there are significant problems with the novel. I was especially disappointed with character development. Etta was the only character in the whole novel with any real depth, and we only see her in the concluding thirty or so pages of the novel. The other players in the novel read like walking, talking stereotypes, from the “lawman who understands the outlaw’s motivations” to the “Yankee profiteering gangster.”
This wouldn’t necessarily have been a problem if these derived from a conscious decision stylistically or thematically. However, Fuller never fully engages with any meaty themes, which was incredibly frustrating given that his novel’s premise sets the stage for some tenacious intellectual engagement. As I made my way through the novel, I kept hoping that Fuller would do something with the “close of the frontier” and the Turner doctrine, but he never does. In fact, Longbaugh—who has made his life in the West—feels little cognitive dissonance with the ways in which culture has progressed and left the mythic West behind. Instead of struggling with technological advancement and new social parameters, Longbaugh just…rolls with it.
This struck me as entirely unrealistic. Even contemporarily, longtime inmates struggle with reintegration after their release. That’s why the recidivism rates for people who serve long sentences is so high: they (re)enter a world that has long left them behind, and they miss the prison culture that they understand. Fuller had a chance to deal with some meaty historical and psychological topics through Longbaugh, but he is instead reduced to a static, one-track character. This is one example in a litany of issues—women’s rights, workers’ rights, modernity, corruption—that are only dealt with in passing. If Fuller wanted this novel to be what I call “Big L” Literature, he would have to deal with prescient issues more tenaciously and artfully.
I felt like Fuller tried to address this particular issue through a vignette approach to the plot, which didn’t quite work, either. Fuller cuts out lots of intermediary details in favor of writing scenes instead of narratives, a tack which I found rather inventive. However, it sometimes made the plot difficult to follow. Beyond that, there were some vignettes that felt completely out of place, like the sexual assault on the Native American girl in the opening of the novel. That felt like a gratuitous stab at grittiness, and it didn’t make a lick of difference to the plot.
The Ugly: Part of Fuller’s difficulty in engaging with larger issues in his novel comes from stylistic issues. In terms of style, I really didn’t like this novel. The writing swings wildly between McCarthy-esque sparseness to Faulknerian descriptiveness, which I found unpalatable. You could read three pages of stripped-down dialogue only to end up mired in four paragraphs of minute imagery. Fuller consciously engages with this style to emphasize the literariness of the book, which is no surprise given Fuller appears to be enamored with his own artistry (the author refers to Roosevelt as “T.R.” and explains that he drops the “a” from “Longabaugh” to make the “character his own” in the book’s acknowledgements. Both statements made me irrationally angry.) Anyway, I couldn’t quite figure out what Fuller was doing with these major style shifts, but it made the overall tone of the book disjointed and almost impossible to nail down.
The style issues were compounded by Fuller’s pacing. This book is, to put it bluntly, much too long. It drags out interminably, which I realized when I found myself deathly bored while reading about a gunfight! The book lacks the snappy action that characterizes strong western novels, and instead drags on before quickly shifting scene and setting. The experience was not unlike getting whiplash while somehow only traveling 25 miles per hour.
There’s so much more I could say about this novel and its plot—why even cameo Butch? Why not tie Moretti in with the British guy’s scheme at the end?—but I think I’ve said enough. If I was rating this book on my personal response to the text, it would get two stars, but I actually think that’s unfair. Fuller’s research is enough to give this book more clout than that, and like I mention earlier, this book does have moments of real brilliance. For those reasons, I think a three star review more accurately reflects the book as a whole.
Full disclosure: I read this book as an ARC for Penguin’s First to Read program.
May 5, 2018
Among other things, I’ve been a more or less professional genealogist for more than fifty years (an obvious interest for a big-city librarian with several history degrees), and because I have an interest in the so-called Old West, I’ve spent some time researching some of the better-known Good Guys and Bad Guys thereof. That includes Robert Parker and Harry Longbaugh, better known to most Americans as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Both were killed by the Bolivian army in 1908, right? Except when their graves were opened and DNA tests made in 1991, Parker was there all right but Longbaugh’s supposed grave was occupied by another gang member. (And that’s actual fact.)
Fuller takes this as his starting point for a romp through early 20th-century society that will hold your attention and have you rooting for the Not-So-Good Guys. ’Cause it turns out Harry was already in prison in Wyoming (under a fake name), doing a twelve-year stretch for train robbery. He’s never even been out of the country. His wife, Ethel (known to history as “Etta Place,” also a fake name) taught school in town for years and came to visit him at the prison every week, until he insisted she stop, for her own good. Finally, she went to New York, but she wrote to him faithfully every week -- until the letters stopped coming two years before. Now it’s 1913 and Harry is out and wondering what happened to his wife. Did she simply have enough, or is she in trouble? The Big Apple awaits.
Harry adjusts to the urban world as he tracks Etta to her old boarding house, then to Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement, then through the Italian underworld of the Black Hand, predecessor of the Mafia. Because Etta had become something of a do-gooder and had a habit of sticking her nose into places she shouldn’t. Fuller paints the ex-Sundance Kid (at least that’s what he’s trying to be, if Charlie Siringo and the Pinkertons will just leave him alone) as both bigger than life and as an ordinary guy, and both faces are perfectly credible. He also does a good job of describing New York just before the Great War. This is the sort of novel that feels like it ought to have been a true story.
Fuller takes this as his starting point for a romp through early 20th-century society that will hold your attention and have you rooting for the Not-So-Good Guys. ’Cause it turns out Harry was already in prison in Wyoming (under a fake name), doing a twelve-year stretch for train robbery. He’s never even been out of the country. His wife, Ethel (known to history as “Etta Place,” also a fake name) taught school in town for years and came to visit him at the prison every week, until he insisted she stop, for her own good. Finally, she went to New York, but she wrote to him faithfully every week -- until the letters stopped coming two years before. Now it’s 1913 and Harry is out and wondering what happened to his wife. Did she simply have enough, or is she in trouble? The Big Apple awaits.
Harry adjusts to the urban world as he tracks Etta to her old boarding house, then to Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement, then through the Italian underworld of the Black Hand, predecessor of the Mafia. Because Etta had become something of a do-gooder and had a habit of sticking her nose into places she shouldn’t. Fuller paints the ex-Sundance Kid (at least that’s what he’s trying to be, if Charlie Siringo and the Pinkertons will just leave him alone) as both bigger than life and as an ordinary guy, and both faces are perfectly credible. He also does a good job of describing New York just before the Great War. This is the sort of novel that feels like it ought to have been a true story.
August 13, 2016
Haven't received my copy yet, just received notice I had won. 4/15/14
Received my copy and hope to start soon. Have 2 others plus my current read in front. 5/5/14
Started 5/10/14
Finished 5/14/14
History tells us that Harry Longbaugh died in Bolivia, but this book tells a different story. He was in prison under an alias. While in prison, Harry told his wife Etta to forget about him, quit visiting and move away to get on with her life. Now that he is released, he has to find her. Even in the Wild West, the changes in the world while he was incarcerated are amazing to Harry. His search for Etta leads him to New York City where he needs to learn the new ways of life, yet keep his past and outlaw ways to survive.
First, I want to say I was a bit iffy about signing up for this giveaway. I am not really into "Westerns" and wasn't sure what to expect. I am so glad I read this though. Off subject sort of but several years ago, my girlfriends went on a road trip that lead through Rawlins WY and we went on a tour of the old prison. They mentioned that certain outlaws were booked under aliases and that it wasn't until after they were released it was found out, so this makes me smile that it is a basis for a book I read more than 15 years later. Back to the book. The characters, setting, and story line seemed spot on for the time period and the landscape. The story was more than believable, and will no doubt spawn or fuel rumors regarding Sundance's actual death. Great read! I am going to give it to my brother in law who is a non-reader. Maybe it will entice him to change his ways!
Received my copy and hope to start soon. Have 2 others plus my current read in front. 5/5/14
Started 5/10/14
Finished 5/14/14
History tells us that Harry Longbaugh died in Bolivia, but this book tells a different story. He was in prison under an alias. While in prison, Harry told his wife Etta to forget about him, quit visiting and move away to get on with her life. Now that he is released, he has to find her. Even in the Wild West, the changes in the world while he was incarcerated are amazing to Harry. His search for Etta leads him to New York City where he needs to learn the new ways of life, yet keep his past and outlaw ways to survive.
First, I want to say I was a bit iffy about signing up for this giveaway. I am not really into "Westerns" and wasn't sure what to expect. I am so glad I read this though. Off subject sort of but several years ago, my girlfriends went on a road trip that lead through Rawlins WY and we went on a tour of the old prison. They mentioned that certain outlaws were booked under aliases and that it wasn't until after they were released it was found out, so this makes me smile that it is a basis for a book I read more than 15 years later. Back to the book. The characters, setting, and story line seemed spot on for the time period and the landscape. The story was more than believable, and will no doubt spawn or fuel rumors regarding Sundance's actual death. Great read! I am going to give it to my brother in law who is a non-reader. Maybe it will entice him to change his ways!
May 12, 2014
There are three elements to a successful novel: writing, plot and characterizations. Truly great novels succeed in all three (think Lonesome Dove). Some very successful novels succeed in only one (think The Da Vinci Code). And then you have a novel like Sundance which succeeds very well on two levels (writing and characterizations) and falls a bit short in the plot element. Set in the period right before the entry of America into World War I, the novel begins with the release of Harry Longbaugh from a prison out West. If the name seems familiar, it is because Harry was better known as "The Sundance Kid". While most assume that he and his partner Butch Cassidy died years earlier in Bolivia, the novel posits that impostors were killed and The Kid survived. After fourteen years in prison, Harry is desperate to find his wife, Etta Place. To find her, he must journey to New York City. Author Fuller writes beautifully. His powers of observation and interesting word choices ("I wear morbid like a paper cut") are exquisitely rendered. A cast of dozens, some more important than others, populate the pages and most are fully developed, with interesting back stories. As the novel moved towards its conclusion however, the ending relied too much on coincidences. I can still highly recommend the book for its atmospheric look at a city on the verge of greatness and the story of a man who simply yearns to be with the woman he loves.
May 11, 2014
SUNDANCE postulates that Harry Longbaugh never went to South America, instead entering prison, after capture and trial, under a different name in 1901. He serves twelve years. The novel opens as he leaves prison in 1913, immediately being braced by a young man, the son of a marshal Sundance had embarrassed, He knew Harry's real identity.
It was self defense, but nobody believes that. Harry's on the run again and has a mission as well.
He wants to find his wife, Etta Place. She'd visited him for years before he made her stop. They were hard on the both of them and letters would have to be enough. But two years before his release, the letters had stopped, his to her returned unopened.
Harry knew she'd lived in New York City and that's where he headed, stopping off to see his sister-in-law on the way. She hadn't heard from Etta in two years either and had in fact been visited by a couple of rough characters back then.
Etta was in some kind of trouble and Harry went looking for her. He was being pursued as well by lawman Charlie Siringo, who'd once infiltrated Butch and his gang undercover while a Pinkerton.
He soon learns that the Black Hand wants Etta. Harry must find her and avoid Siringo at the same time.
Well researched and written. The author did a fine job placing the reader in early twentieth century New York city.
Recommended.
It was self defense, but nobody believes that. Harry's on the run again and has a mission as well.
He wants to find his wife, Etta Place. She'd visited him for years before he made her stop. They were hard on the both of them and letters would have to be enough. But two years before his release, the letters had stopped, his to her returned unopened.
Harry knew she'd lived in New York City and that's where he headed, stopping off to see his sister-in-law on the way. She hadn't heard from Etta in two years either and had in fact been visited by a couple of rough characters back then.
Etta was in some kind of trouble and Harry went looking for her. He was being pursued as well by lawman Charlie Siringo, who'd once infiltrated Butch and his gang undercover while a Pinkerton.
He soon learns that the Black Hand wants Etta. Harry must find her and avoid Siringo at the same time.
Well researched and written. The author did a fine job placing the reader in early twentieth century New York city.
Recommended.
May 15, 2014
I received a copy of Sundance from the Penguin First-to-Read program in exchange for an honest review.
I thought I might enjoy this book when I requested it, but I did not know that I would like it as much as I did. The premise of the book is that the Sundance Kid was not killed in Bolivia, but was actually in prison under an assumed name when the alleged event occurred. He gets out of prison and encounters a much changed world, with cars and electricity. Sundance goes to New York City after his wife, and much happens there. I don’t want to add any spoilers, so I can’t say much more.
I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, although it did flow a little slowly in some places for me. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. But don’t expect a rehash of the Wild West, because most of the book takes place in New York City.
I thought I might enjoy this book when I requested it, but I did not know that I would like it as much as I did. The premise of the book is that the Sundance Kid was not killed in Bolivia, but was actually in prison under an assumed name when the alleged event occurred. He gets out of prison and encounters a much changed world, with cars and electricity. Sundance goes to New York City after his wife, and much happens there. I don’t want to add any spoilers, so I can’t say much more.
I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, although it did flow a little slowly in some places for me. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. But don’t expect a rehash of the Wild West, because most of the book takes place in New York City.
June 5, 2016
This was a nicely-imagined alternate fate for the Sundance Kid, and a sweet love story. The author's introduction (for me, anyway) to the work of Alfred Beach, the first man to build a subway in New York, was fascinating, and prompted me to google the inventor to learn more.
September 8, 2018
A perfectly readable book that also somewhat completely falls apart if you think about it at all...
Thanks to the 1969 film starring Paul Newman (as Butch Cassidy) and Robert Redford (as the Sundance Kid), the collection of legendary Western outlaws grew by two. Most Americans these days really only know the pair because of the film, and I guess it's just as well. If their legacy is extended by material like David Fuller's Sundance, there doesn't seem to be that much life in them. Fuller's is one of those "a famous person isn't really dead!" narratives the tabloids love so much. The funny thing is that Fuller has Sundance, or Harry Alonzo Longbaugh, scoff at the shoddy interpretations that spread in dime novels of his and Cassidy's adventures, even though his take is as heavily romanticized as anything cheap adventure writers used to produce. He doesn't seem to have any grasp of Longbaugh's personality, what motivated him, or his relationship to Etta Place, the darling wife he spends the whole book trying desperately to find.
In short, the book is really one of three things. One is, obviously, the "a famous person isn't really dead!" tabloid narrative. The second is a mystery thriller. The third really has nothing to do with Sundance at all, a tale of early 20th century New York that could've starred anyone at all, that has its moments of real insight, but could also just as easily been written as pulp fiction, and not of the Tarantino variety.
So it's really hard to decide what motivated Fuller to write this, what he was hoping to accomplish, and what he thought he accomplished. If you don't worry too much about the details, I suppose it's a fun little story that extends Sundance's legacy in a fairly clever way, something you've seen, ironically, in countless movies. And maybe Fuller was trying to get a movie out of it, and being a screenwriter by day, maybe it started out as a movie, at least in his head. Maybe he abandoned it when he realized Redford was already too old to reprise the role as he'd imagined it. I don't know.
At any rate, you get the sense that there were a lot of scraps of narrative he stitched together, even at times somewhat literally, as he repeats bits of information unnecessarily. If he'd filled out the story behind the ex-Pinkerton agent in pursuit of Longbaugh, or written it from the perspective of Han Lei, the Chinese youth who continually offers his services to Longbaugh...But that's probably asking more from Fuller than he can deliver. He includes an afterword in which he thanks a number of people for helping him with the manuscript, and it's always painful to be reminded a mediocre work had a lot of eyes on it and no one caught, or thought worth catching, things like this, when any of them could've helped iron them out. Who are these people writers of this kind depend on, and why on earth are they so easily trusted? I tell you, I just don't understand.
Thanks to the 1969 film starring Paul Newman (as Butch Cassidy) and Robert Redford (as the Sundance Kid), the collection of legendary Western outlaws grew by two. Most Americans these days really only know the pair because of the film, and I guess it's just as well. If their legacy is extended by material like David Fuller's Sundance, there doesn't seem to be that much life in them. Fuller's is one of those "a famous person isn't really dead!" narratives the tabloids love so much. The funny thing is that Fuller has Sundance, or Harry Alonzo Longbaugh, scoff at the shoddy interpretations that spread in dime novels of his and Cassidy's adventures, even though his take is as heavily romanticized as anything cheap adventure writers used to produce. He doesn't seem to have any grasp of Longbaugh's personality, what motivated him, or his relationship to Etta Place, the darling wife he spends the whole book trying desperately to find.
In short, the book is really one of three things. One is, obviously, the "a famous person isn't really dead!" tabloid narrative. The second is a mystery thriller. The third really has nothing to do with Sundance at all, a tale of early 20th century New York that could've starred anyone at all, that has its moments of real insight, but could also just as easily been written as pulp fiction, and not of the Tarantino variety.
So it's really hard to decide what motivated Fuller to write this, what he was hoping to accomplish, and what he thought he accomplished. If you don't worry too much about the details, I suppose it's a fun little story that extends Sundance's legacy in a fairly clever way, something you've seen, ironically, in countless movies. And maybe Fuller was trying to get a movie out of it, and being a screenwriter by day, maybe it started out as a movie, at least in his head. Maybe he abandoned it when he realized Redford was already too old to reprise the role as he'd imagined it. I don't know.
At any rate, you get the sense that there were a lot of scraps of narrative he stitched together, even at times somewhat literally, as he repeats bits of information unnecessarily. If he'd filled out the story behind the ex-Pinkerton agent in pursuit of Longbaugh, or written it from the perspective of Han Lei, the Chinese youth who continually offers his services to Longbaugh...But that's probably asking more from Fuller than he can deliver. He includes an afterword in which he thanks a number of people for helping him with the manuscript, and it's always painful to be reminded a mediocre work had a lot of eyes on it and no one caught, or thought worth catching, things like this, when any of them could've helped iron them out. Who are these people writers of this kind depend on, and why on earth are they so easily trusted? I tell you, I just don't understand.
February 8, 2018
Author David Fuller spins a different ending to the life of Harry Longbauer aka The Sundance Kid, legendary outlaw partner of Butch Cassidy, than what history believes happened. Since their bodies were never recovered in Bolivia where their deaths allegedly occurred, Fuller has created a new ending. Sundance opens with Harry, now known simply as Alonzo being released from a 12 year sentence for bank robbery. His only thought is to find and reunite with his wife Etta. His journey takes him to 1913 New York City. There he finds Etta’s last known address the Henry Street Settlement House founded by Lillian Wald. He is followed by Charlie Siringa, a former gang member and now a Pinkerton detective who wants to bring him you justice for a murder in Wyoming. Etta’s trail takes him to the criminal underground of the members of the Black Hand and to the boarding houses in the lower East Side of NYC. Harry Longbauer Is a romantic man, and this reinvented story made me root for him to get the lady in the end.
September 2, 2019
Absolutely wonderful. The story asks the question what if the Sundance Kid never perished in South America and was holed up in jail under an alias for the last twelve years yearning for his wife Etta. When he does get out he is attacked by the son of a former Sherriff, is forced to defend himself and ends up back on the run from the law. At the same time he is searching for his wife who has left a trail of clues to New York. The author has done a magnificent job of setting the scene, we are taken from the Wild West across the country to a new New York City that is coming in to its own. Horses and automobiles coexist, and electricity is quite prevalent. The details are exquisite and I felt like I was walking the streets of New York with Harry Longbaugh. Excellent in every way. Highly recommended.
December 24, 2018
Pretty good and maybe even closer to 4 starts, however when distracted I find it harder to enjoy a book. Timing wise, this book came along when my reading moments were few and further between than I'd have liked.
The story of Harry Longbaugh ( the Kid half of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) in an imaginative fiction of what might have happened to him after his days of fearsome bank robberies. Another case of why the ladies like the bad guys, and how he wouldn't rest until he could find his one lady love.
The story of Harry Longbaugh ( the Kid half of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) in an imaginative fiction of what might have happened to him after his days of fearsome bank robberies. Another case of why the ladies like the bad guys, and how he wouldn't rest until he could find his one lady love.
October 2, 2021
Another excellent piece of historical fiction from the author, speculating that Harry Longbaugh, the Sundance Kid, didn’t die in Bolivia, but was released from jail in 1913 after serving time under an alias and went to New York to trace Etta Place. A gangster and a Western lawman are after him for various reasons as he tries to find Etta, hiding from the gangster. The ending, which is a bit cinematic and over the top, particularly with the art references, detracts, but it is a great depiction of New York and an involving quest. This is an immersive, literate read.
January 9, 2025
The writing was fine, comma but I found the topic boring. I keep trying to find historical fiction books that I like, and I may just have to stop fighting it. I don’t really like most historical fiction I don’t know if it’s worth it to try to find the exact type that I do like. I don’t like westerns so I don’t know what I was thinking with this one. But I did think that it was sweet that this deadly criminal’s main concern was to find his wife.
November 10, 2016
After listening to a great podcast about Robber's Roost, one of Butch and Sundance's hideouts, this book grabbed my attention. The historical events of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, New York City in the early 1900's and the premise that Butch Cassidy and Harry Longbough did not die in a gun battle in Bolivia all made for a fun read.
November 18, 2019
Premised strictly on the 'what if' of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid having survived in Bolivia, this is a fast read, well written with a sort of noir tone to it - and riddled with bad guys, lawmen, gangsters, ladies of the night and great loves.
October 27, 2016
I think I need to revisit this one some time down the road. The first half drew me in as I'm a sucker for historic fiction, but the end left me feeling rushed...
October 25, 2018
A fun story on a western legend.
November 10, 2019
Anything related to Butch and Sundance garners my attention. Loved the notion that they survived the gun battle in Bolivia. But slowed down with Sundance going to NYC looking for Etta.
March 3, 2020
Not what I was expecting. I definitely wouldn't consider this a western though!
April 16, 2021
Easy read. Fun adventure. Loved that the setting and era where different from my typical reads. Really enjoyed it.
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