Pretty Boy: The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd
by Michael Wallis
Published by W. W. Norton & Company, May 2011
In this enthralling work, Michael Wallis — the best-selling author of Billy the Kid and David Crockett — turns his attention to one of the most feared yet celebrated outlaws who ever lived: Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd. Masterfully rendering the infamous and often brutal exploits of the FBI’s original “public enemy” against the larger backdrop of a poverty-stricken nation, Wallis situates Pretty Boy’s life within the stories of the hardscrabble farmers whose destinies were so inalterably shaped by the Great Depression. The result is a social history at its best, an unforgettable portrayal of one of our most recognized criminals and the vanished, impoverished world in which he roamed.
About Michael Wallis
Michael Wallis, a renowned chronicler of the Old West, is the best-selling author of Route 66, Billy the Kid, and David Crockett. Frequently appearing on television and in documentary films, Wallis plays the Sheriff in the animated Pixar features Cars and Cars 2. He lives with his wife in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Praise
"This engaging biography exactly and vividly catches the tone of a region, a time, and a man."
-- Larry McMurtry
"An outstanding biography of Public Enemy No. 1."
-- Publishers Weekly
"Wallis has written a very engaging biography of Floyd, attempting to separate fiction from fact."
-- Library Journal
"Wallis has written the first full-scale biography of Charles Arthur 'Pretty Boy' Floyd, and it is a good one, very readable without sensationalizing or sentimentalizing its subject."
-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch