This is the second of a series of articles discussing the culture, films, music, and books about Wyatt Earp, Tombstone and the Gunfight of the OK Corral, leading up to the 125th Anniversary of the Shootout on October 26. Because we’re dealing with the “Wild West” I will be grading the reviewable subjects in the following manner: (please cue the soundtrack) The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
The first item up for review is Frank Waters' “classic,” The Earp Brothers of Tombstone. Full disclosure needs to come in just about now: During the next few weeks I will have a book, Travesty: Frank Waters’ Earp Agenda Exposed, being published. I have examined every aspect of the so-called classic Waters’ approach to the shootout, and have done a detailed study of the original manuscript, Tombstone Travesty, that is no longer under copyright. I managed to locate Travesty about a decade ago in the Waters files at the University of New Mexico. Until my discovery, no one realized an additional manuscript existed. The book also contains correspondence leading up to the publication of Earp Brothers.
Frank Waters was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature five times. Unfortunately, The Earp Brothers of Tombstone, published in 1961, was not one of his better works. In many ways it is part of a disjointed trilogy that began with The Colorado, continued in Midas of the Rockies, and ended with Earp Brothers. Both Colorado and Midas are somewhat autobiographical in nature. After five years of studying Earp Brothers, I have yet to figure out just what it is supposed to be aside from a smear campaign levied against the Earp brothers, and especially Wyatt Earp. A Freudian psychologist once told me he feels Waters had an Oedipal relationship with Wyatt Earp, but then Freudians see the Oedipal Complex the way a detoxifying drunk sees pink elephants.
Earp Brothers, revised from the original Tombstone Travesty manuscript written sometime during the mid- to late-1930s, is quite different in tone to the finished product, which is little more than a blood-dripping poison pen tome designed to destroy the reputation of Wyatt Earp and his brothers. The greatest tragedy in all of this is the duplicitous manner in which Waters pumped Virgil Earp’s widow, Allie Sullivan Earp, for information, then manipulated it in such a manner that Allie threatened to shoot him when the final manuscript was read to her. Taking the coward’s way out, Waters placed the Tombstone Travesty manuscript in the archives of the Arizona Historical Society, only removing them for publication a few years after Allie had died and could no longer defend the reputation of her husband and his brothers.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - tink
Not a fan of the 'Western' genre, it was your tag line promise of scoop on the author that drew me in. What a strange turn of events that an author would jeapordize his own reputation in the way that Waters did...on a subject that he despised.
GREAT stuff!!!
3 - Tim Fattig
Great work, Cindy! I know this is the tip of the iceberg in your work on Waters and the Earp story generally, but this is nothing less than fascinating.