| Press Release |
GO DOWN TOGETHER
The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde
By JEFF GUINN
―Intensely readable . . . de-romanticizes two of America’s most notorious outlaws without undermining
the mystique of the Depression-era gunslingers. . . . With the brisk pacing of a novel, Guinn’s richly
detailed history will leave readers breathless until the final hail of bullets.
– Publishers Weekly, starred review
―Go Down Together casts a brilliant new light, not just on two hapless criminals but on the creation and
then the devouring of the first American media darlings. Jeff Guinn is a great storyteller.
– Richard Ben Cramer, author of Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life
“Go Down Together is thorough, precise, beautifully written, and compulsively readable. It shines a
brilliant lamp on two very unusual people, and, a bonus, it richly illuminates middle America between the
wars. Completely fascinating.
– Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser novels
By the time Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker died in an ambush outside Gibsland, Louisiana,
on May 23, 1934, media coverage of their two-year crime spree had already established
them as criminal legends. In the ensuing 75 years, countless articles in true crime
magazines, innumerable books, and, especially, a brilliant film by Warren Beatty have
elevated the young lawbreakers to cultural icons for the ages. We’ve been encouraged to
believe that Clyde and Bonnie, who for a brief time were America’s Public Enemies #1 and
1A, epitomized glamour, coolness under fire, and criminal brilliance as they roamed Middle
America robbing and murdering at will.
None of that is true. The real story of Bonnie and Clyde is almost exactly the opposite of the
myths that have grown up about them — and it’s far more fascinating. In Go Down
Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde (Simon & Schuster; March 10, 2009;
$27.00), bestselling author Jeff Guinn delivers the only definitive account of the lives and
crimes of two poor kids from a Dallas slum who bungled almost every stickup they
attempted, mostly killed out of panic rather than premeditation, and were doomed from the
moment a smart, pragmatic lawman was hired to hunt them down. The Barrow Gang’s
short-lived heyday was as much a reign of error as of terror; their celebrity was based on
media coverage designed to entertain a Depression-weary public that valued colorful
exaggeration far more than facts.
Now, thanks to Go Down Together, we have the facts, offered with the brisk pacing of a
novel and based on unprecedented access to diaries, photos, primitive video interviews,
and letters provided by surviving Barrow and Parker family members and historians that
have never been made public before. For the first time in any book about Bonnie and Clyde,
there is no speculation based on inaccurate material.
Clyde and Bonnie were both cripples. He deliberately cut off two of his own toes while in
a Texas prison, and limped badly afterward. Bonnie’s leg was so horribly burned in a car
wreck (caused by Clyde’s characteristically reckless driving) that she hopped rather than
walked for the last year of her life, and usually had to be carried.
Far from dallying in luxurious hotels, the couple spent most nights camping out in their
car, eating cans of cold beans, relieving themselves behind bushes, and bathing in streams.
Clyde insisted that his gang members dress up in public, and one clue that helped lawmen
track them was that they would make frequent stops at dry cleaners to have suits and
dresses cleaned and pressed.
The first man Clyde killed had been raping him in prison for almost a year. All the rest of
the Barrow Gang murders occurred during panic-stricken attempts to escape capture, and
Clyde was also wrongly blamed for several more slayings.
Since 1934, there has been ongoing speculation about how — or even whether — Barrow
Gang member Henry Methvin and his family betrayed Bonnie and Clyde to the law. Go
Down Together finally solves that mystery, utilizing newly discovered video interviews
with members of the Methvin family to lay the issue to rest. No previous book has been able
to provide this information because no author before Jeff Guinn has had full access to these
materials.
Placing Bonnie and Clyde squarely within the context of their times, Guinn vividly
recaptures the mood of Depression-era America during the Dust Bowl years as well as the
cultural and economic factors that triggered their life of crime and the public’s reaction to it.
Though the crimes committed by Bonnie and Clyde aren’t in any way forgivable, Go Down
Together makes clear their motivation to do anything to escape the lives they otherwise
faced as poor white trash during the Depression. America’s rigid class structure —
essentially, you stayed on the level where you were born — had already sentenced Clyde
Barrow and Bonnie Parker to remorseless poverty, and the economic crash of 1929
eliminated even their slightest chance of gainful employment. The son of a failed
sharecropper and a sternly fundamentalist mother, Clyde wanted respect and the chance to
wear Sunday clothes every day of the week. Bonnie was beguiled by dreams of romance
and stardom — her dearest wish was to become an actress in Hollywood or a star on
Broadway.
By the time they met, it already seemed their lives were failures. Twenty-year-old Clyde
was on the run after escalating his criminal activities from stealing chickens to automobiles,
and nineteen-year-old Bonnie had been deserted by her husband. Together, they blundered
into fame when their first fumbling attempts at major crime coincided with new media
technology that instantly made their faces and names familiar from coast to coast. The
mystique of the Barrow Gang was fed by a newspaper industry hungry to sell papers in the
face of declining circulation, and right from the start much of what was reported about
Bonnie and Clyde was fabricated. A number of robberies and shootings were inaccurately
attributed to them, further fueling the legend — and the price on their heads. For an
impoverished and increasingly desperate populace that had come to see bankers, lawmen,
and sometimes even the local grocer as the enemy, the criminal pursuits of Bonnie and
Clyde, both real and alleged, were a welcome form of entertainment, and Bonnie and Clyde
gladly provided it. They embraced their newfound celebrity — it was proof that they
mattered.
The cost, to them and to their victims, was staggering. They expected to die young. Bonnie,
an aspiring poet, predicted in verse that they would ―go down together.‖ (Rare samples of
Bonnie’s handwritten poems are included in the book.) After two years, the Texas governor
appointed a special officer to track the Barrow Gang down — Frank Hamer, the only
lawman in the state who was as famous as Bonnie and Clyde. Drawing on Hamer’s
memoirs, expense accounts, FBI documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act,
and other rare materials, Guinn recreates the event-filled 102 days when Hamer and his
posse stalked, then finally ambushed, their quarry.
As Publisher’s Weekly raved in its starred review of Go Down Together, ―Guinn’s richly
detailed history will leave readers breathless until the final hail of bullets.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jeff Guinn is the bestselling author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction. An award-winning
investigative journalist and former Books Editor and Senior Writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he is
a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. Guinn is a member of the Texas Institute of
Letters and lives in Fort Worth, Texas.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
GO DOWN TOGETHER: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde
Published by Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: March 10, 2009
Price: $27.00
ISBN-10: 1-4165-5706-7; ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5706-7
Visit Simon & Schuster on the web at http://www.simonandschuster.com/
For author photo or jacket photo, visit http://www.simonandschuster.net/
The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde
By JEFF GUINN
―Intensely readable . . . de-romanticizes two of America’s most notorious outlaws without undermining
the mystique of the Depression-era gunslingers. . . . With the brisk pacing of a novel, Guinn’s richly
detailed history will leave readers breathless until the final hail of bullets.
– Publishers Weekly, starred review
―Go Down Together casts a brilliant new light, not just on two hapless criminals but on the creation and
then the devouring of the first American media darlings. Jeff Guinn is a great storyteller.
– Richard Ben Cramer, author of Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life
“Go Down Together is thorough, precise, beautifully written, and compulsively readable. It shines a
brilliant lamp on two very unusual people, and, a bonus, it richly illuminates middle America between the
wars. Completely fascinating.
– Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser novels
By the time Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker died in an ambush outside Gibsland, Louisiana,
on May 23, 1934, media coverage of their two-year crime spree had already established
them as criminal legends. In the ensuing 75 years, countless articles in true crime
magazines, innumerable books, and, especially, a brilliant film by Warren Beatty have
elevated the young lawbreakers to cultural icons for the ages. We’ve been encouraged to
believe that Clyde and Bonnie, who for a brief time were America’s Public Enemies #1 and
1A, epitomized glamour, coolness under fire, and criminal brilliance as they roamed Middle
America robbing and murdering at will.
None of that is true. The real story of Bonnie and Clyde is almost exactly the opposite of the
myths that have grown up about them — and it’s far more fascinating. In Go Down
Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde (Simon & Schuster; March 10, 2009;
$27.00), bestselling author Jeff Guinn delivers the only definitive account of the lives and
crimes of two poor kids from a Dallas slum who bungled almost every stickup they
attempted, mostly killed out of panic rather than premeditation, and were doomed from the
moment a smart, pragmatic lawman was hired to hunt them down. The Barrow Gang’s
short-lived heyday was as much a reign of error as of terror; their celebrity was based on
media coverage designed to entertain a Depression-weary public that valued colorful
exaggeration far more than facts.
Now, thanks to Go Down Together, we have the facts, offered with the brisk pacing of a
novel and based on unprecedented access to diaries, photos, primitive video interviews,
and letters provided by surviving Barrow and Parker family members and historians that
have never been made public before. For the first time in any book about Bonnie and Clyde,
there is no speculation based on inaccurate material.
Clyde and Bonnie were both cripples. He deliberately cut off two of his own toes while in
a Texas prison, and limped badly afterward. Bonnie’s leg was so horribly burned in a car
wreck (caused by Clyde’s characteristically reckless driving) that she hopped rather than
walked for the last year of her life, and usually had to be carried.
Far from dallying in luxurious hotels, the couple spent most nights camping out in their
car, eating cans of cold beans, relieving themselves behind bushes, and bathing in streams.
Clyde insisted that his gang members dress up in public, and one clue that helped lawmen
track them was that they would make frequent stops at dry cleaners to have suits and
dresses cleaned and pressed.
The first man Clyde killed had been raping him in prison for almost a year. All the rest of
the Barrow Gang murders occurred during panic-stricken attempts to escape capture, and
Clyde was also wrongly blamed for several more slayings.
Since 1934, there has been ongoing speculation about how — or even whether — Barrow
Gang member Henry Methvin and his family betrayed Bonnie and Clyde to the law. Go
Down Together finally solves that mystery, utilizing newly discovered video interviews
with members of the Methvin family to lay the issue to rest. No previous book has been able
to provide this information because no author before Jeff Guinn has had full access to these
materials.
Placing Bonnie and Clyde squarely within the context of their times, Guinn vividly
recaptures the mood of Depression-era America during the Dust Bowl years as well as the
cultural and economic factors that triggered their life of crime and the public’s reaction to it.
Though the crimes committed by Bonnie and Clyde aren’t in any way forgivable, Go Down
Together makes clear their motivation to do anything to escape the lives they otherwise
faced as poor white trash during the Depression. America’s rigid class structure —
essentially, you stayed on the level where you were born — had already sentenced Clyde
Barrow and Bonnie Parker to remorseless poverty, and the economic crash of 1929
eliminated even their slightest chance of gainful employment. The son of a failed
sharecropper and a sternly fundamentalist mother, Clyde wanted respect and the chance to
wear Sunday clothes every day of the week. Bonnie was beguiled by dreams of romance
and stardom — her dearest wish was to become an actress in Hollywood or a star on
Broadway.
By the time they met, it already seemed their lives were failures. Twenty-year-old Clyde
was on the run after escalating his criminal activities from stealing chickens to automobiles,
and nineteen-year-old Bonnie had been deserted by her husband. Together, they blundered
into fame when their first fumbling attempts at major crime coincided with new media
technology that instantly made their faces and names familiar from coast to coast. The
mystique of the Barrow Gang was fed by a newspaper industry hungry to sell papers in the
face of declining circulation, and right from the start much of what was reported about
Bonnie and Clyde was fabricated. A number of robberies and shootings were inaccurately
attributed to them, further fueling the legend — and the price on their heads. For an
impoverished and increasingly desperate populace that had come to see bankers, lawmen,
and sometimes even the local grocer as the enemy, the criminal pursuits of Bonnie and
Clyde, both real and alleged, were a welcome form of entertainment, and Bonnie and Clyde
gladly provided it. They embraced their newfound celebrity — it was proof that they
mattered.
The cost, to them and to their victims, was staggering. They expected to die young. Bonnie,
an aspiring poet, predicted in verse that they would ―go down together.‖ (Rare samples of
Bonnie’s handwritten poems are included in the book.) After two years, the Texas governor
appointed a special officer to track the Barrow Gang down — Frank Hamer, the only
lawman in the state who was as famous as Bonnie and Clyde. Drawing on Hamer’s
memoirs, expense accounts, FBI documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act,
and other rare materials, Guinn recreates the event-filled 102 days when Hamer and his
posse stalked, then finally ambushed, their quarry.
As Publisher’s Weekly raved in its starred review of Go Down Together, ―Guinn’s richly
detailed history will leave readers breathless until the final hail of bullets.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jeff Guinn is the bestselling author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction. An award-winning
investigative journalist and former Books Editor and Senior Writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he is
a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. Guinn is a member of the Texas Institute of
Letters and lives in Fort Worth, Texas.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
GO DOWN TOGETHER: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde
Published by Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: March 10, 2009
Price: $27.00
ISBN-10: 1-4165-5706-7; ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5706-7
Visit Simon & Schuster on the web at http://www.simonandschuster.com/
For author photo or jacket photo, visit http://www.simonandschuster.net/