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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
A lot
Outlaw violence, shootouts, and murder; the era's brutality depicted with care
Language
Some
Period-authentic language; some strong words
Sexual Content
Some
Adult relationships in the outlaw milieu; some intimacy
Substance Use
Some
Heavy period drinking; the social world of Missouri outlaws
Emotional Intensity
A lot
Fame and its consumption of those who pursue it, hero worship as a form of destruction, the guilt that follows a betrayal
What this book is about
A literary Western of the highest order. Ron Hansen follows Jesse James through the final months of his life — paranoid, dangerous, still magnetic — and traces the obsessive adoration of Robert Ford, the young man who would shoot him in the back for a reward. Hansen's prose is precise and elegiac, the violence felt and never glorified, the moral weight of the relationship between a legend and his worshipper rendered with extraordinary care. Later adapted into one of the finest American films of the 2000s.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
sustained violence in an outlaw setting
a murder at the center of the narrative
period alcohol use throughout
Reader Verification
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