Bonnie: A Novel
As the country sinks deeper into the Great Depression, mama’s girl Bonnie Parker feels her own prospects dimming with it. Her husband is in prison, the babies she could adore have not been forthcoming, and her dreams of making it in the motion pictures or gaining fame as a poet seem far away. Then Clyde Barrow walks through a friend’s doorway. With his help, Bonnie’s immortality will be assured—though not as an actress or as a poet.
In her novel, told in the third person from the viewpoint of the titular character and, occasionally, her mother, Schwarz takes us on a rollicking, and decidedly unglamorous, ride with the young couple whose life of crime fascinated and attracted a nation hungry for antiheroes. On the way, we are joined by a vividly drawn cast of accomplices, victims, lawmen, and the couple’s hapless relatives. (The pair’s families, hoping for the best but confidently expecting the worst, make for some of the novel’s best scenes.). Add to this a dry wit, the author’s ability to turn a lovely, evocative phrase (a sky is “the pale blue of a girl’s wash dress”), superb research, and sharp dialogue, and one has an excellent read.
