Ok - by Paul West (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

John Henry "Doc" Holliday was Southern gentry by birth, a dentist by training, sharp shooter and lawman by design, and gambler by default, being by disposition and circumstance -- he contracted tuberculosis soon after graduating from dental school -- unable to practice dentistry formally. In this remarkable historical novel, Paul West breathes new, thrilling life into Doc and his cohorts, including "Big Nose" Kate Elder and the infamous brothers Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp. He recounts in heart-stopping detail the events leading up to the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral -- those thirty seconds of terror and confusion -- and the weeks of bloody retribution that followed, which Doc survived only by the grace of his good luck and notoriously quick trigger finger.

In West's Old West, the thin line between the lawless and the lawmakers is lethal, and the tragic inevitability of these legends? lives is touched with pathos and unsentimental poignancy. West stunningly evokes the shadow of death that is never far from the young gunslinger, racked by coughing fits that will kill him if a bullet does not. But Doc Holliday's image as cold-blooded, gun-toting cowboy belies his profound intelligence. Years of correspondence between Doc and his cousin Mattie, a nun, have long since been destroyed. In West's re-creation of their intense epistolary exchanges, a reflective and passionate Doc Holliday emerges, a man acutely aware of the madness of his world.

Since the days of the Wild West, Doc Holliday and his contemporaries have been immortalized in our collective consciousness. In O.K., Paul West turns inside out our long-cherished assumptions about who these bold and deadly men were, using his chameleon-like ability to absorb larger-than-life figures and an historical era and make them his own. West displays here his masterful ability to transcend time and place in a characterization of Doc Holliday as timeless as the legendary man himself. Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "possibly our finest living stylist in English" and considered "one of the most original talents in American fiction" by The New York Times Book Review, West proves yet again why praise for his work is so richly deserved.

Review Quotes

Andria Spencer "The Boston Globe" West turns the ordinary into the exquisite....

David Madden "San Francisco Chronicle" One of American literature's most serious and penetrating historical novelists.

Donna Seaman "Booklist" West writes with a nearly delirious eloquence and a vast store of knowledge....

John Vernon, author of "A Book of Reasons" Don't say: a new novel by Paul West. The correct term is a new Paul West, that is, something completely sui generis. In "O.K., " West promises then delivers a grand gunfight at the famous corral, but that is hardly the book's heart. The latter instead is an epistolary relationship between Doc Holliday and his cousin, cloistered in a Georgia convent, who discuss among other things the moral structure of the universe as experienced by a dying, consumptive gunslinger. "O.K." is a dark and beautiful book by one of the world's finest living writers.

Jonathan Yardley "The Washington Post" The rest of us will despair of ever being able to write prose so immaculate as that of Paul West.

Thomas R. Edwards "The New York Times Book Review" His is one of the most original talents in American fiction.

Andria Spencer

"The Boston Globe"

West turns the ordinary into the exquisite....

David Madden

"San Francisco Chronicle"

One of American literature's most serious and penetrating historical novelists.

Donna Seaman

"Booklist"

West writes with a nearly delirious eloquence and a vast store of knowledge....

John Vernon, author of "A Book of Reasons"

Don't say: a new novel by Paul West. The correct term is a new Paul West, that is, something completely sui generis. In "O.K.," West promises then delivers a grand gunfight at the famous corral, but that is hardly the book's heart. The latter instead is an epistolary relationship between Doc Holliday and his cousin, cloistered in a Georgia convent, who discuss among other things the moral structure of the universe as experienced by a dying, consumptive gunslinger. "O.K." is a dark and beautiful book by one of the world's finest living writers.

Jonathan Yardley

"The Washington Post"

The rest of us will despair of ever being able to write prose so immaculate as that of Paul West.

About the Author

Paul West is the author of eighteen previous novels and the recipient of many prestigious awards, including a Lannan Literary Award for fiction and the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1996, the French government decorated him Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.