Pretty Boy Floyd - by Larry McMurtry (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The time is 1925. The place, St. Louis, Missouri. Charley Floyd, a good-looking, sweet-smiling country boy from Oklahoma, is about to rob his first armored car.

Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry and his writing partner, Diana Ossana, Pretty Boy Floyd traces the wild career of the legendary American folk hero Charley Floyd, a young man so charming that it's hard not to like him, even as he's robbing you at gunpoint. From the bank heists and shootings that make him Public Enemy Number One to the women who love him, from the glamour-hungry nation that worships him to the G-men who track Charley down, Pretty Boy Floyd is both a richly comic masterpiece and an American tragedy about the price of fame and the corruption of innocence.

Review Quotes

Andy Solomon Chicago Tribune An absorbing tale...vivid [and] vibrantly realized...

Bruce R. Simon Richmond Times-Dispatch The prestigious talents of Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize winner, and Diana Ossana have spun a convincing, forceful biographical novel, Pretty Boy Floyd, which sheds light upon Charley Floyd's brief, outlandish, and self-destructive life.

Dave Goldsmith The Plain Dealer Excellent...Without romanticizing the bank robber, the authors create a sympathetic picture of a farm boy who wanders into the crooked life and can't get back out.

John Skow Time Like Lonesome Dove, Pretty Boy Floyd beguiles the reader with a golden haze of lovely lies.

About the Author

Larry McMurtry (1936-2021) was the author of twenty-nine novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove, three memoirs, two collections of essays, and more than thirty screenplays. He lived in Archer City, Texas.