|
NEW EDITION with an introduction
by
frontier historian Ted Franklin Belue
Fighting for the British and Indians, Simon Girty
was a fierce warrior and ally of the native tribes, particularly the Shawnee and the
Wyandots. An able frontiersman, as were Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone, and an
acquaintance of both, his bloody exploits and legend made Girty the most hated and feared
villain in Kentucky and the Ohio Valley. However, many who knew the
man respected him for his convictions, principles, and bravery.
"Literate and provocative, Girty is at once a moving novel and a welcome revision of myth.
Mr. Taylor has
managed to salvage a human personality out of the detritus of legend, to make a stock
villain—without denying
the villainy—complicated and real."
—
The American Book Review
"When I want to read writing truly done, I read Girty, a
poetic foray into a Dark and Bloody Ground that
couples man and myth, romantic hero and implacable antihero.
Iconoclastic in its tact, elegaic and spare in its lyricism, no other work on this singular man who was both
so loved and reviled hits the mark so well and gives him a reason for being."
—
Ted Franklin Belue
"If Kentucky books were awarded stars, Richard Taylor's Girty should have four on its cover."
— Lexington Herald-Leader
"Girty sheds his own legends in these pages, which neither
glorify nor condemn him but render him as he likely was: more kin by
nature to the defensive violence of the primitive red men than to the
rapacious acquisitiveness of the civilized white ones. This good book
instructs while it delights the hand that holds it, the eye that reads
it, and the imagination in which it continues to live."
— Hollins Critic
|
