Forget the movies, the novels that have been written about Bonnie and Clyde. Read Guinn's top notch work of nonfiction Go Down Together and you might agree that his well-researched as close as possible to the truth work is so much more exciting and rewarding than the sensationalist distortions of the media and entertainment industry. ( )

review of
Jeff Guinn's GO DOWN TOGETHER, The TRUE, UNTOLD STORY of BONNIE and CLYDE
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 14-28, 2019

For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1125950-clyde-bonnie?chapter=1

I, like many people, might've 1st heard tell of Bonnie & Clyde when the Arthur Penn movie about them came out in 1967. It's unlikely that I witnessed this movie in a theater at the time because I was 13 most of that yr & had very limited access to theaters. There were none w/in walking distance of where I lived. Stll, I'm sure I saw it in a theater w/in a few yrs of its release. The Penn movie, starring Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow & Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, is mostly sympathetic to its title's characters & paints a romantic picture.

Guinn's biography is also sympathetic but tries to be more 'objective' & to take into consideration the people that the Barrow Gang killed. As such, the "Prologue" starts off w/ a tribute of sorts to a young motorcycle patrolman on his 1st day on the job:

"Up to the moment he was gunned down, this was a particularly good time in H. D. Murphy's young life. In twelve days he was to marry Marie Tullis, his twenty-year old girlfriend. They'd just found an inexpensive furnished apartment to rent." - p 1

Regardless of how one feels about police or criminals, the death of someone soon to start their married life is a tragic affair. Many people might feel this way about police but how many wd feel that way about criminals? At any rate, Guinn seems to try to examine Clyde's murders realistically. It's all too easy to oversimplify & to let sensationlist gossip get the upper hand.

"Of the seven men who'd died directly by his hand to date—he'd been erroneously blamed for two other murders—only two killings had been premeditated. The first was in 1931, when Clyde used a lead pipe to crush the skull of a fellow inmate who'd repeatedly raped him on a Texas prison farm. The second came six weeks before H. D. Murphy died outside Grapevine, when Clyde helped Joe Palmer murder a guard who'd abused Palmer in prison." - p 3

Naturally, I think that these 2 murders are highly significant insofar as they indicate how prison further criminalizes people. After Clyde was released he wd go to any lengths to never go back in again. He didn't go in a murderer but he certainly came out one.

One facet of this story that interests me is: Did Bonnie Parker ever actually shoot at anyone? It seems that the official police story is that she was a cold-blooded murderer &, therefore, deserved to be gunned down in an ambush. Other sources, closer to Parker, say she never shot at anybody. I tend to take it for granted that the police will lie to justify murder but I'm not so sure that friends & acquaintances of Bonnie Parker wd have such a clear-cut motive for lying about her not being the gun-toting killer she's reputed as being.

I've seen Larry Buchanon's documentary entitled The Other Side of Bonnie & Clyde (1968). In it, Barrow Gang associate Floyd Hamilton is shown being questioned about Bonnie & Clyde. Strangely, the scene is introduced by the interviewer saying that he's going to give Hamilton a polygraph test. That never happens. The person presented as being Hamilton is shown as saying:

Interviewer: "Did she participate in the robberies & the killings?"

Floyd Hamilton: "Only by being present."

Interviewer: "She, uh.. As far as you know, did she ever kill anyone?"

Floyd Hamilton: "No."

Interviewer: "She did not."

Floyd Hamilton: "No."

Interviewer: "Did they tell you about their robberies & killings when you met them on these country roads?"

Floyd Hamilton: "Well, after each crime was committed, gun battle or what you might call it, run-in with the law, we would question them, & they would tell us, in other words, their side of the story."

Interviewer: "& no-one ever said to you that Bonnie had participated in the shooting or that she ever killed anyone?"

Floyd Hamilton: "No." - The Other Side of Bonnie & Clyde

"Bonnie didn't mind having guns around. She just didn't want to shoot them." - p 165, GO DOWN TOGETHER

In Arthur Penn's movie Bonnie is shown shooting at the cops. Guinn partially discredits the media image of Bonnie Parker as a killer.

The footnote for page 152, Chapter 13, states: "W. D. Jones began firing wildly from the car: W.D. claimed in his confession that Bonnie did the shooting. In his interview with Playboy, he admitted that the whole time he was with Bonnie and Clyde, "she never fired a gun. But I'll say she was a hell of a loader."" (p 396)

In the notes to Chapter 15, it's stated that: "But the biggest question regarding the Joplin gunfight on April 13, 1933, is this: Did Bonnie Parker pick up a rifle and start shooting at the police from a window in the apartment? In her unpublished memoir Marie Barrow Scoma unequivocally stated she did: "Bonnie grabbed a gun and looked out the window down at the area immediately in front of the garage. She saw the police car parked there and saw one of the officers behind it firing into the garage. Bonnie fired at this man, but missed him."

"In Fugitives, Clyde's sister Nell says Bonnie told her she fired shots in Joplin, but this admission is part of another long, flowery monologue that sounds supiciously like something editor Jan I. Fortune might have embellished or invented for dramatic effect.

"Yet W/ D. Jones in his 1968 interview with Playboy was also definite: "During the five big gun battles I was with them [which included Joplin], she never fired a gun." Bonnie's mother, Emma, and sister, Billie Jean, were adamant that Bonnie didn't fire even one bullet from the time she met Clyde until her death." - p 398

"One particularly gregarious witness, who claimed to have watched the whole thing from his farmhouse porch several hundred yards away, swore that two men shot down the patrolmen, and then the woman with them fired more shots into the fallen Murphy while her victim's head bounced off the ground like a rubber ball." - p 4

Guinn makes the case that the witness made a false statement & that this statement helped create the media image of Bonnie as a killer.

"Bonnie Parker had been regarded as the sexy companion of a criminal kingpin. Overnight, she was newly perceived as a kill-crazy floozy who laughed as she finished off an innocent rookie patrolman and simultaneously ruined the life of the sweet young girl who'd been about to marry him. The vicarious love affair between Americans and the Barrow Gang was over." - p 5

Chapter 1 gets into the pre-history of Bonnie & Clyde, details of socio-economic misery that it's unfortunate that anyone shd have to live thru. The section that chapter 1 starts is prefaced by a surprising 1910 quote from former president Teddy Roosevelt:

"["]Now they face a new war, between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess." - p 7

Indeed. Interestingly, there was an assassination attempt against Teddy Roosevelt by a man named John Schrank that I've written about in my review of James W. Clarke's American Assassins:

"["]While writing a poem, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said: 'Let not a murderer take the presidential chair. Avenge my death.' I could clearly see Mr. McKinley's features.
- John Schrank""

[..]

"Schrank purports to have a psychic experience that tells him that Teddy Roosevelt was behind McKinley's murder. Roosevelt's 1st stint as president was thru his replacing McKinley on his death. As such, it's not necessarily remarkable that Schrank would have a conspiracy theory regarding the murder (I've wondered myself) but that he would have a psychic experience that provided him with the theory! I mean, what do you make of that?!"

[..]

"The Spanish-American (Cuban/Puerto Rican) War keeps popping up. Teddy Roosevelt was one of its "charismatic heros" (read psychotic unprincipled mercenary). Not only was Schrank 'visited by McKinley to tell him to kill' the "Bull Moose", he wanted to kill him because he was running for a 3rd term of the presidency: "In Schrank's mind, breaking the two-term tradition was the first step toward dictatorship. Although pleading guilty to the shooting, Schrank explained that he did not intend to kill 'the citizen Roosevelt' but rather only 'Theodore Roosevelt, the third termer.' 'I did not want to kill the candidate of the Progressive Party,' he continued, 'I shot Roosevelt as a warning to other third termers.'" Hate to break it to ya, John, but when you kill the "third termer" you also kill the "citizen" that shares the same body. Putting such distinctions aside, though, I find Schrank's contention of third terming leading to dictatorship to be an obvious 'truth'. Fortunately, it's illegal now - or we'd probably have a member of the Bush Empire serving for life in every available high office. Despite Schrank's murderousness, he was apparently quite affable:

""Later when the panel of doctors announced their insanity verdict, the agreeable Schrank, shaking hands and thanking each, informed them that while he disagreed with their diagnosis, he felt that they had done their best. Similarly, as he was being transferred to the state mental hospital, he thanked the sheriff and a jailer for their kindness adding, 'I hope I haven't caused you much trouble,' 'Not a bit,' the sheriff replied. 'You've been the best prisoner we have had here since I have been in office.'

"As the train rolled across the wooded Wisconsin countryside en route to the state mental hospital, he was asked whether he liked to hunt. 'Only Bull Moose,' he replied wryly.""

- https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

The families of Clyde & Bonnie were, what else?, Christian.

"The Bible was replete with reminders that Jesus loved poor people a lot more than he did rich ones. Wearing patched clothes and sometimes not having enough to eat were, in effect, evidence of personal godliness. The implication was obvious, if not declared outright: poor people were good, rich people were bad." - p 14

Maybe that's one of the reasons why televangelists have such an easy time bilking their followers.

Clyde, aka "Bud", & his family lived in absolute poverty. This wasn't b/c of laziness, it was b/c of failed farms & greedy banks. For some people, for MANY people, no matter how hard you work you're stuck at the bottom. As much as people are in denial about this, it takes money to make money & all those privileged people born w/ silver spoons & nest eggs are going to thrive while those born w/o are going to crash & burn. So why does anyone fucking wonder why people turn to crime? If they want to get out of the death-trap of their class, crime looks pretty damned good in relation to working some low-paying job from here to infinity. So here are the kids playing:

"And the roles Bud inevitably chose for himself were outlaws. He was Jesse James or Billy the Kid." - p 16

Clyde's father, Henry, was practically the archetypal working-entirely-too-hard-for-too-little kindofa guy.

"So each morning he hitched up the horse and took his wagon over the bridge into Dallas, where he spent the day picking up scrap metal of any kind and hauling it to nearby foundries, which for pennies on the hundred pounds bought the scrap to be melted down. It was a hard way to make a meager living." - p 25

"Everything about Dallas excited fifteen-year-old Clyde Barrow.

"The city dazzled him with its endless stream of possibilities. Unlike tiny Telico, if you wanted to go to the picture show, you could choose between dozens of films instead of just one. Some Dallas theaters changed features four times a week, and not long after Clyde arrived for good in 1925, silent movies began gradually giving way to talkies." - p 29

I remember when I was born people were still black & white & silent.

"Clyde Barrow might love all the fine things in Dallas, but Dallas didn't love him back. As a useful worker bee he was tolerated, but that was the extent of it. In Dallas and all across America, the mid-1920s was a time when social and economic standing was rigid: you stayed where you were born. That was certainly true in Clyde's new job. Almost as soon as he figured out a dollar a day didn't go all that far, he also realized he had nearly reached the peak of his earning potential. The rich people he worked for were glad to have him as a line employee, but he would never be a manager. That was for his social superiors." - p 32

Have things changed that much now? In the 21st century? 90 yrs later? Pittsburgh is rife w/ nepotism & croneyism. The spouse of a well-placed administrator will advance in record-time while someone much more qualified will go nowhere slow.

"Clyde Barrow wouldn't settle for make-believe. The teenager who always had to be in charge wouldn't accept that in Dallas he had no control over his own destiny. He was willing to work hard to have a better life in the city. He'd grown up in the country, where there was minimal social stratification. In rural farm communities, everybody wore the same clothes, went to the same dances, interacted on a more even basis. Now he was locked into a system intended to permanently separate the haves and the have-nots. There was no doubt which category he belonged to, and Clyde's frustration gradually festered into anger." - p 33

& isn't that what CLASS WAR is all about? Unscrupulous rich people not only controlling resources but also controlling other people's opportunities, closing other people's lives in more & more. Revolting against being trapped by vampires is a healthy natural response.

"Some perceived the couple as despicable hoodlums with no respect for human life and property. But to many others, they were heroes. True, they robbed banks and shot it out with lawmen, killing some in the process. But in 1933 bankers and law enforcement officials, widely perceived to have no sympathy for decent people impoverished through no fault of their own, were considered the enemy by many Americans. For them, Clyde and Bonnie's criminal acts offered a vicarious sense of revenge. Somebody was sticking it to the rich and powerful." - p 175

In the Arthur Penn movie, Bonnie & Clyde, Bonnie is shown as passionately trying to initiate sex w/ Clyde to wch he responds in an asexual way. Clyde is shown as having an unspecified sexual problem wch he eventually resolves. In GO DOWN TOGETHER the reader is told that an ex--girlfriend of Clyde's, from before Bonnie, sd this:

"Decades later, asked about long-standing rumors suggesting that her infamous former beau was either gay or impotent, she assured the interviewer that Clyde "didn't have any problems at all," and left no doubt that she spoke as an authority on the subject." - p 36

That, unfortunately, was before Clyde had been repeatedly raped in prison. That's the sort of reality that most people, perhaps fortunately, don't have to think about. Just like they don't have to think about the lives of people like Clyde Barrow's parents & their family:

"Cumie and Henry didn't approve of stealing, but they were loyal to their son. When Buck's trial was set for late January 1929, his parents decided to go to San Antonio to lend whatever moral support they could, and possibly by their presence influence the judge to show leniency. It was 275 miles from West Dallas to San Antonio, and the Barrows couldn't afford train or even bus fare. Henry hitched up the horse and loaded Cumie, L.C., and Marie in the wagon. Tookie Jones, Cumie's best friend in the campground, came along, too, bringing her youngest sons, W.D. and Leroy. They left without even enough money to buy meals. The trip took almost three weeks. Every few days along the way they would stop and hire out at roadside farms where cotton was being picked or some other field work needed to be done. Marie recalled how, during the trip, her father's fingernails were literally ripped off by prickly plants. All seven of them got down in the dirt and worked, though ten-year-old Marie was excused after the first day when her cotton sack contained as many twigs and leaves as fluffy bolls. When they were paid for their labor, they used the money to buy inexpensive food for themselves and feed for the horse. At night, Cumie cooked potatoes and pots of beans over a campfire. They slept under and around the wagon." - pp 38-39

Keep in mind that this was January, 1929, & not a century earlier. If you don't understand that people are forced to live in conditions like this thru no fault of their own then you're really out-of-touch w/ reality. Bonnie's upbringing was somewhat easier but she was hardly a spoiled bourgeois:

"After years of predicting she'd be a famous star on Broadway, or perhaps a renowned poet, she was still a nobody in the Dallas slums." - p 44

Notice that Bonnie Parker had creative aspirations — & why not? Her poetry's more important to me than Emily Dickinson's ever will be — regardless of the latest feminist rehistoricization of Madeleine Olnek's 2018 Wild Nights with Emily in which the completely pampered rich poet who never had to work for a living or do much of anything other than write her poetry is shown to us as somehow sensitive to the plight of the black people who probably never ventured into her rich neighborhood as anything other than servants if even as that. Cancel Culture such as Wild Nights with Emily depict all men as fools but Dickinson's privileged lifestyle was pd for exclusively by such foolish men. Even Emerson is presented as a mumbling idiot &/or drunk but I think I'd choose Emerson's articulateness over Dickinson's any day. The film was designed to convince the audience that Dickinson wasn't a reclusive crackpot. I went to see the film b/c I like her poetry & am interested in her life. I never thought of her as a 'crackpot'. I left the film thinking she was a crackpot, contrary to the filmmaker's intention.

The point of the above digression is that much time & money has been spent on praising the genius of Emily Dickinson b/c she was privileged & can, therefore, be used by other privileged women in Call-Out Culture as an icon to make the pampered poodles into somehow being 'victims' — in other words, people who live in glass houses throw stones from the safety of a smoke screen. Bonnie Parker was dirt poor & worked, at 1st, for a living; Emily Dickinson was filthy rich, & never worked for a living EVER. They were both poets. Parker was murdered by the police state in her early 20s. Dickinson died of natural causes late in life. The Police State exists to protect the rich, people like Dickinson. Parker doesn't seem to get much respect as a poet, Dickinson is fodder for all sorts of glory — including having her mansion be a museum to her memory.

"And that was the problem for Bonnie. Most of her dreams had to remain fantasies. The grandest of them—singing in Broadway musicals, acting in Hollywood movies, writing best-selling volumes of poetry—were virtually impossible, even if she refused to accept it. Broadway and Hollywood producers didn't scout for talent in Cement City. Publishers didn't seek out the next Emily Dickinson there. Perhaps, with her dedication to endless self-promotion and a degree of talent, she might become a star if she went to California or New York, but Bonnie wasn't going anywhere. She had no money to make such a trip, let alone to live on while she made the rounds of auditions." - p 48 ( )

4.25 stars

Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker (later known as “Bonnie and Clyde”) both grew up extremely poor in the slum of West Dallas, Texas. They both loved their families very much and visited as often as they possibly could, even while on the run. They knew they would die young, likely violently. They stole fancy cars, and robbed some small banks and small stores and gas stations, which really only gave them enough money for food and gas. They had very little left over, and mostly had to sleep in “their” car. When they had extra, they often brought it to their families.

I knew nothing of Clyde and Bonnie beyond their names and that they were criminals/gangsters on the run in (I thought) the 1920s (it was actually only for a couple of years in the early 1930s). This book was so well-researched. I feel like, if it’s not (it might already be), it should be the go-to book about the two of them. Their crimes did mostly start off as robberies and stealing cars, but in their haste to not get caught, there were shootouts and people got killed. There were a few other murders thrown in that weren’t part of shootouts, as well.

It was slow to read, but nonfiction often is. That being said, it was fascinating and I was interested all the way through. Now, there were multiple confrontations and shootouts, so I did get a few confused toward the end, and some of the criminals who came and went from the “Barrow Gang” also got a bit confusing, but overall, this was really good. There was also a section of photos included in the middle. ( )

I read this book for my book club, so it isn't something I would normally have read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I knew so little about Bonnie and Clyde that almost all of this book was a learning experience. I got a good feel for what the pair was really like. I feel like the research behind this book is solid, especially based on the sources listed at the end. My impression of these two young people who chose short lives of crime is much more realistic than it was before I read this book. In many ways, the press hasn't changed much since the 30s! They still write what sells, even if it is embellished. ( )

Turns out that a lot of things I thought I knew about Bonnie and Clyde were not true. They were not a tall and handsome couple like Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. They were also not very smart-both of them spent some in jail and for Clyde that was some hard time. I guess that old adage is right: crime does not pay.


I started to list here all the things I learned from this book, but then I realized that would be spoiling things for everyone else. I decided I'm just going to stick to the main points:

They were not smart criminals. They were repeatedly jailed, chased, shot at, etc... They were often injured in these gunfights with police and when I say injured, I mean badly hurt. They were great at stealing cars though, and Clyde liked the Ford V-8's so much he wrote Henry Ford a fan letter about them.

They loved their families and made arrangements to see them often: which just illustrates how clueless and unprepared the law was for fugitives like these. They didn't stake out the houses of Clyde or Bonnie's mothers or their other relatives, until near the very end. If only they had done that, many lives could have been saved.

Clyde and Bonnie loved lavishing their relatives with money and gifts, (when they could), and they both liked to dress nicely. That was about the only luxury they could enjoy, because they were almost always on the run, never able to relax or enjoy themselves. Most of their robberies netted them so little in the way of booty, they were hardly worth the trouble.


Lastly, they truly did love each other. When Bonnie's leg was badly injured, (due to a car chase and subsequent wreck where battery acid leaked all over her), Clyde forever after carried her wherever she needed to go. Bonnie's poetry and writing all showed that she knew they would both come to a bad end, but she loved him and wanted to be with him, even in death. So, I guess that one part of the Hollywood myth is true.

I listened to the audio version of this book. It was detailed, but not too much, and the narrator even added a little humor when the time was right. I learned a lot. Recommended! ( )

A friend recommended this one and it fit perfectly for this month’s Heroes and Villains category for my Nonfiction challenge.

The reviews of the audio edition almost made me go with the print, but my friend listened to it and enjoyed it. I listened to a sample and the narrator was fine. Once I started listening, I bumped up the speed to 1.25 and was quite comfortable listening it that way.

The book itself is quite interesting. If the only thing you know about Bonnie and Clyde is the 1967 movie with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, then you don’t know much that’s true about Bonnie and Clyde.

I’d heard good things about Jeff Guinn’s books and after listening to this one I am positive that I will be putting his other books on my TBR list.

He provided plenty of fascinating information about both Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker as well as their extended families. The families are definitely part of the story because Clyde and Bonnie (it was never Bonnie first until Beatty’s movie put her first) made regular trips back to the Dallas, Texas area to visit their families.

I learned a lot about them and also about the men that eventually ambushed them in rural Louisiana. Once they were established in their life of crime neither Clyde nor Bonnie expected to live very long. They expected that they would be killed by law enforcement officers.

I thought this was a fascinating book. As I said the narration was fine but not anything that would make me seek out other books narrated by the same person. Listen to the sample at Audible and make your own decision regarding audio or print but if you have any interest, I do recommend the book. ( )

Dragged a lot in parts. It was comprehensive. Maybe too comprehensive. Overall it was a good read. I now know that Bonnie Parker does NOT smoke cigars and the gang, while dangerous, made a lot of mistakes. ( )

Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn is a fascinating read of this famous duo who caught the attention of the law and the imagination of the public in the early 1930’s. These two young people were each from a very poor background and in the impossible situation of trying to climb out from the West Dallas slums where they were raised. In these times the quickest way was to turn to crime for instant cash and the fame and excitement that came along with it were not unwelcome to these two kids. The Great Depression brought hard times to most Americans and thanks to over-exaggerated news stories Bonnie and Clyde became household names.

In fact these two were far from the cool and calculating criminals that they were painted to be. It was mostly luck that kept them from being caught during their two year crime spree. The jobs they pulled were most often on small businesses, gas stations, and grocery stores. Times were so hard that they often came up empty handed. They spent much of their time living hand-to-mouth, camping out in their stolen cars, bathing in cold creeks and living on cold cans of beans. They both seemed to be aware that their lives were going to be the price they would have to pay for their short stint in the spotlight. One thing the book does stress however, is that these two were devoted to one another. And although their life was nothing like the glamour that was portrayed in the excellent 1967 movie, this book paints a realistic picture of these two outlaw lovers.

The book is everything one wants in a non-fiction read - engrossing, beautifully written, highly readable and informative. The author manages to cut through much of the mystery that surrounds these two, yet still delivers a haunting, eye-opening story that is a great read for historians and crime buffs alike. ( )

I remember seeing a double feature, in the early 70s, that included Bonnie and Clyde and Bullitt. I liked Bullitt, especially the famous car chase but I fell hard for Bonnie and Clyde. Truly one of the great American films. I had always wanted to read more about them, but never did, outside of an occasional true crime anthology. Once I heard about [Go Down Together], I knew I had to read it and it turned out to be an excellent biography.
However, fantastic the 1967 film was, it romanticized the infamous couple, casting them as tragic folk heroes. They were anything but. They were dirt poor kids, living in West Dallas, during the depression and Clyde Barrow slid steadily into a life of crime and eventually brought Bonnie Parker, along for the ride. They were not daring bank robbers, but two-bit hold up thieves, with an uncanny way of escaping the law. Clyde also became a cold-blooded killer, gunning down several law enforcement officers. They were only in their early 20s when they met their infamous fate.
This was a well-researched, page-turning bio, meticulously detailing the lives of this notorious couple, their families and the lawmen that finally tracked them down. Highly recommended. ( )

Excellent book. The stories of the Depression-era outlaws are always fascinating, and Bonnie & Clyde are right up there in public fascination, due to the imagined romance of their lives, which it turns out was at least partly true. Bonnie & Clyde were inseparable to the end, their loyalty to one another is one of the outstanding things about them. Everything else was pretty grim. They grew up in grinding poverty, both wished for better things, small luxuries and a comfortable life, and in pursuit of these goals, almost by accident ended as criminals with a bloody death the inevitable end. It has to be remembered how young they were, neither had reached their 25th birthday when they died. This a tour de force of research, literally every day of the gang's life on the run is described in meticulous detail, and yet it remains an absolutely gripping read, the essential humanity of both pursued and pursuers is always present. Its warts and all, the author unflinchingly lists everyone's faults, Clyde was a control freak, Bonnie a drama queen, both coveted fame and bragged about their exploits, the lawmen chasing them bungled many times, even the final meticulously laid plan by ace crime fighter Frank Hamer was marred by rivalries within his posse and the credit-seeking of other police, but their humanity is never forgotten. This is a marvellous book, in terms of readability and sensitivity its up there with Clark Howard's Six Against The Rock, my favourite book about Depression era outlaws, its a terrific read. ( )

It's always exciting to find a writer that can and does make non-fiction read like fiction. Guinn does just that in this look at the life of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde. The "real" Bonnie and Clyde. I personally think truth was stranger than fiction in this case. ( )

It's always exciting to find a writer that can and does make non-fiction read like fiction. Guinn does just that in this look at the life of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde. The "real" Bonnie and Clyde. I personally think truth was stranger than fiction in this case. ( )

This is a comprehensive account of the lives of Bonnie and Clyde. Unfortunately, it's not an especially exciting account, because it turns out the lives Bonnie and Clyde led was anything but exciting. Bonnie and Clyde spent most of their time together stealing cars, committing penny ante robberies and sleeping in their car while fugitives from the law. Rather than being daring bank robbers, they lived more like drifters. The only exciting part of their story was Clyde's amazing ability to elude the authorities when cornered. It turns out that the legend of Bonnie and Clyde is far more exciting than the true untold story. ( )

An excellent, well-researched, meticulous account of the lives of Bonnie and Clyde. I picked this up looking for more information than the 1967 Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway film provided, and boy did it ever deliver! This book traces both Bonnie's and Clyde's lives from birth to death and draws extensively from Barrow relatives' unpublished memoirs to provide some truth to the legend. Guinn writes well and really draws you in. The fatal ambush that killed Bonnie and Clyde is so realistically described that I came away from it feeling quite sick and a little bit sorry for them. Yes they were criminals and had killed several innocent people, but really, the carnage at the ambush site was absolutely horrific.

The book was also educational on a more general level. For example, I learned that Texas had a female state governor in the early 1930s, which I would not have expected. I also learned a lot about guns, understandably -- especially the Browning Automatic Rifle, a favourite of Clyde's, and a variant of the BAR called the Colt Monitor, which was put to such lethally efficient use at the ambush. And the book provided an illuminating look at life in the United States as a whole in the 1930s.

As most good biographies do, this one contains a bunch of pictures and a hefty array of endnotes. Where necessary the author has indicated the more reliable sources and any potential problems with the sources he did use; for example, when he quoted from Clyde's mom's unpublished memoir, there were no page numbers so he couldn't cite them that accurately. He didn't even know what order the sections had been written in.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the story of Bonnie and Clyde, particularly those who have seen the movie. It's a fascinating journey. ( )

As the prologue stated, the movie was excellent, this book exceeded it. ( )

An excellent description of dust bowl, and depression era America. A lot of insight into the "public enemy era" which seemed to last for most of the early 30's. Bonnie and Clyde's upbringing and their early experiences are dealt with well, describing how and why they became the way that they did (ie narcissitic and fame coveting). Their actual lifestyle and experience was very different from Warren Beaty's film. It was certainly not glamorous and not comfortable. Their personal injuries are dealt with in some gruesome detail, which might be a bit much for some, but I think that anyone with an interest in fame, crime, celebrity culture (of whatever era), gangesters, gunfights and car chases is going to like this. Just don't ever, ever upset Mr Frank Hamer. The man who brought down Bonnie & Clyde was one of the hardest law men I've heard of. Recommended with one caveat, there is some exhaustative detail here, you must get past that, but overall, very enjoyable ( )

This is the most recent addition to the many bio's of Bonnie and Clyde. The author has done some outstanding research that has added some interesting points to their story that I have not seen before. This is a very readable biography and I look forward to any new books by Jeff Guinn. ( )

Go Down Together: the True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde is a new (early 2009) book by Jeff Guinn, a Fort Worth resident. This non-fiction book brings to light almost every detail of Bonnie and Clyde's "adventures."

Guinn has a team of what I would call world-class researchers. The details in this book are so specific that you can almost imagine yourself as an eye-witness. Guinn was able to write such a vivid account of Bonnie and Clyde because of "surviving Barrow and Parker family members and collectors of criminal memorabilia who provided Guinn with access to never-before-published material."

The reader will get a history lesson of both the Parker and Barrow families, what life was like in West Dallas in the 1920's and 1930's, the strong familial bond Bonnie and Clyde had with their families, and a look into the personalities of Bonnie and Clyde, as well as other members of the Barrow gang and "the laws" that were after them.

I enjoyed this book so much that I'm thinking of signing up for the Dallas Historical Society's Running with Bonnie and Clyde tour! ( )

Submitted by Mr. Overeem (Language Arts)
Guinn takes all the old research, sifts out the myth and errors, and adds his own fresh findings to deliver what will probably be the last word on the infamous duo (note the "Untold" of the title). Even if you've already read enough about them to have stripped away the myth, you'll learn plenty of fascinating new information and come away understanding Bonnie, Clyde, their families, and their times much better. It's also exciting because so many significant incidents of their brief (and wildly incompetent) criminal career happened in Missouri! ( )

Well written historical documentation of the lives of Bonnie and Clyde from their early childhoods until their death. ( )

The late 1920s and 1930s were a unique time for criminals. Law enforcement was still locally controlled and criminals could easily escape by crossing jurisdictional lines, and gangsters like Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger captured the imagination of folks suffering from economic hard times, until they met their end at the hands of a posse. Clyde Barrow was a small-time car thief and robber of gas stations in the slums of West Dallas when he met Bonnie Parker at a party. They instantly formed a relationship that took them through the next several years of robbery, shoot-outs with police, living on the run, and a love/hate relationship with the press until May 23, 1934 when a posse of former Texas Rangers, Dallas police and a Louisiana sheriff ambushed them on a country road outside Shreveport, Louisiana. But the story could never end that simply, and the legend of Bonnie and Clyde grew out of any semblance to reality.

Jeff Guinn has put together a well-researched, well-written history of Clyde and Bonnie and the rest of the Barrow gang by going back to the source material and digging into the unpublished stories and interviews given by family members and others involved in the actual events. In doing so, he really clears away the built-up detritus from the efforts of magazines like True Crime, sensationalist books, and wildly inaccurate Hollywood productions that have clouded the actual events. For instance, the Barrow gang wasn't particularly successful as a criminals. Clyde was a pretty good car thief and could drive a mean get-away car, but he never scored more than a few thousand dollars robbing banks and lived hand-to-mouth on the run by robbing country gas stations and grocery stores. Bonnie wasn't the vicious mastermind of the gang portrayed by Faye Dunaway, but was devoted to Clyde and never to anyone's knowledge was an actual participant in a robbery or a killing. As Guinn ably demonstrates, much of what we "know" about Bonnie and Clyde is wrong.

Go Down Together is well worth the time to get a sense of what the Depression era - and the gangsters who were so prominent during that time - was really like. ( )

An interesting history of the famous 30s outlaws. Bonnie & Clyde (or Clyde & Bonnie as they were known then) were essentially small time crooks who made a big name for themselves. They robbed many more gas stations, grocery stores and gum ball machines than they did banks. The 30s criminal aristocracy such as Pretty Boy Floyd and John DIllinger were contemptuous of them. Although Clyde could be very violent (he did not hesitate to kill when he felt threatened) he was not a mad dog killer and would frequently give his released hostages travel money to get back home. Readers from the ArkLaTex might be particularly interested in the book since the Barrow gang spent a good bit of time in the area. ( )