The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (1997) - Plot & Excerpts
I'm giving this a 4 out of 5 stars because of the amazing writing. There are a lot of folks who think that is all that a book should be. They just give it a pass. But I will always be a reader who needs a plot. This has a plot but it goes along at a plodding pace, and I don’t care how beautiful the writing is, it pulls the book down. And it wasn’t great all the way through. The first half and the last quarter were beautiful - but there was a bit just past the halfway point where it lost its rhythm and became downright clunky. And there are a great many words. Every new person is introduced with a list of adjectives that run together. After awhile it feels incredibly contrived. Like did he have to go through a thesaurus to get all these? Basically a great many words. Too many words. I also have to give him mad props for research. I didn't feel there was one person that wasn't fully fleshed. The author seems to know everything about what went on - like he was in the room when it happened. I wonder if there was some sort of wizardry taking place. The author does fall into the trap of romanticizing Jesse James, like everyone else. The man was a chameleon. I've tried researching photos... I swear, he doesn't look the same in any two. But the author imbued him with an almost omniscient awareness. Jesse himself said many times that he was telepathic. Admittedly, there are times he moved a day before being raided, or changed his mind about pulling a robbery, which proved providential, as someone had warned the authorities and the place was being guarded. But Jesse admitted to Bob at one point that he had a network of spies working for him, which is a little more believable than telepathy. And Jesse trusts no one. He seems to know just the question to ask to unnerve someone, to goad them into revealing their weaknesses. Then he stirs around their psyche to see how they respond. Then he can tell if they’re plotting against him. At one point, he goes to the farm where Bob and Charlie’s family lives, and he even goes upstairs and inspects the rooms. He points out some blood. (His cousing Wood HIte had disappeared and I’m sure he knew that something had gone down at the farm house) But still, I mean, who goes looking around in people’s houses like that? Despite the romanticizing, there are moments where the author shows us James' brutal side. He truly was a remorseless killer. And besides the mail or money being carried like cargo, they also robbed the passengers. Now at that time, there weren’t nationwide banks. People would travel with all their worldly possessions, and their money, meant for buying farms, etc. And there was no insurance for that kind of thing. So they weren't just taking money or valuables, they were stealing people's lives from them.Robert Ford gets no romanticizing. It's clear that he's an arrogant, cringing, puling dog of a man. Obsessed with Jesse since he was a kid, he's torn between hero worship and jealousy... but he is also in danger. Jesse has a huge price on his head and has slowly been killing off members of the gang. This paranoia leaves the men thinking it's either be killed by Jesse or turn him in. In the end, Jesse only trusts Bob and his brother Charlie. In a way, it’s like he brought it on himself.I can't help but bring up the movie, as I saw the movie long before I read the book. (I actually tried to read this twice and kept putting it down). I just loved the movie, and it used large chunks of Hansen's beautiful rambling prose. It stayed quite close to the book, but the book goes more into Bob's life after the assassination. Overall, I felt like it was sad. It was a shame that Jesse wasn't taken alive, then maybe Charlie and Bob's lives wouldn't have ended up like they did. All in all, I'm glad I read it, but it is a heavy book. I gave it 4 stars, but I’m not enthusiastic about it.I'm usually madly in love with a 4 star, and imagine myself reading it again, so I'm a little torn. I might read passages of it, but not the whole thing. It's worth reading for the beautiful prose but it's also very heavy. I wish I was someone who could put down a book when I get bored and go to something else and then come back.... but I have trouble doing that. It's read it or lump it for me. I am glad I finally got through it.
I'm not particularly fond of the term "a writers' writer"--it seems far too dismissive and a little pretentious--but I'm not sure I can find a more fitting description for Ron Hansen, and for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford in particular. I've remarked before that there's no one who manages verbs quite as swiftly and beautifully as Hansen does, a feat he repeats here in Jesse James, but I found myself more smitten with his metaphorical descriptions and always-enviable wealth of period details this time around. I'll limit myself to just one such example, lest I end up quoting the whole damn book: "his eye sockets were as deep and dark as fistholes in the snow."Which is to say that there's something pleasurable to be found on every page, and nearly every paragraph. Jesse James isn't terribly plot-y, but there's enough going on here to keep any reader interested, unless he or she is particularly impatient. But I think Hansen really wishes for us to luxuriate over the words here: to pick up on and spend time with their poetry, which he supplies in a way that seems effortless. (My heart tells me that hours of effort had to go into these descriptions, however, which is maybe just something I tell myself so that I can sleep at night.) There's precious little to criticize here, though I have to admit that I didn't feel much of an urgency to pick this up once I'd finished a chapter or section. This can almost certainly be attributed to having seen Andrew Dominik's excellent 2007 film, which hews so closely to the novel (including quoting passages of it at length) that there were very few surprises.Though his descriptions are always what I cite first when I tell people that they have to read Ron Hansen, his characterization is commendable too. Jesse James, a "character" already so thoroughly explored and exploited even when he was alive, is given a depth and a scariness here that I haven't seen in other portrayals. He's unhinged and sick and charming and terrible. But Bob Ford is especially well-conceived, and the complexity of his character (fawning attentiveness and sycophancy, roiling disgust with himself and with Jesse) serves as an excellent model for anyone looking to write literary fiction. Because make no mistake: this might take a topic typically explored in genre fiction, but this is light-years from the cardboard cutout versions of Jesse James supplied in the dime novels that first brought his story to life.
What do You think about The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (1997)?
This book is a real pleasure. Its writing is meticulous and understated.As the novel opens, Ron Hansen shows great care with his description of Jesse James. Most novels show great care with the opening depictions of their protagonists, though, so as always a reader is advised to say, "Let's wait and see." But as the novel progresses, Hansen's descriptions never lose their detail and never resort to irrelevant imagery.That is this novel's best surprise. Hansen knows what deserves his ample descriptive talents and what does not. If a barstool is not particularly relevant to the rest of a story, it is a careless indulgence when a writer gives three paragraphs to its depiction. That sort of writing is schoolboy/girl writing and not professional writing.Hansen knows what parts of his novel are important, and he knows that they are parts large enough to fill 300 pages. He writes confident, well-shaped sentences that tell a story just right.This novel does not fly forward and might not have all the action readers of Westerns appreciate. It seems a bit slower than Larry McMurtry's work but also a wee bit more careful.
—Bart
Ron Hansen’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford leads the reader through the life (and death) of the outlaw Jesse James. This book was well written, but had too many subplots for my liking. Though it felt anticlimactic, I enjoyed it over all and would recommend it to anyone enthusiastic about history.Hansen vividly describes each scene; the dialogue and writing are magnificent and stay true to the time period. The lives of the people in the book felt realistic, and they each had their own ambitions driving them. Even though it is a book about criminals, the reader still sees another side of Jesse as a husband and father.For most of the book, up until Jesse’s death, the story felt like it was not really going anywhere. There was not much of a consistent plot until Robert Ford planned the murder, but the action scenes held my attention. They managed to keep me on the edge of my seat. The author wonderfully created suspense in these moments. During most of the time I was reading, I was confused about where everything happened chronologically. At one moment, the characters would be talking and the next they would be robbing a train in a way that felt like a flashback, but I could never be sure.There were times the storyline was boring, though. It went up and down like a roller coaster. Unlike most books, this was not built up to the climax. There was not much leading up to Jesse’s death (which I am assuming is the climax), so it felt uneventful.I enjoyed the backgrounds given to each character, and the drama that worked its way into the story. In the end, Jesse James’ biggest fan turned out to be his worst nightmare.
—Erika
When I was writing my MA history thesis, my advisor said to me, "Narrative is the hardest thing to write."What he meant was that a long string of narrative, devoid of historical argument is difficult because the simple recounting of facts gets really boring after a while.The story of Jesse James and Robert Ford is far from boring, but the style of this book reads like the narrative portions of a history or narrative non-fiction book. Only a very few times are we allowed access to the thoughts of the characters, and only hear about their actions. Surprisingly, I found this made parts of the novel that should have been suspenseful rather dry and dull.I understand why the author made the stylistic choices he did, but I found that they removed me from the story, rather than drew me in. At the beginning, I found the incredible detail rich, but without access to the feelings and motivations of the characters, it soon became tedious.
—Mdh
