"Charles Neider, you know, spent two and a half years in New Mexico to get the true story of Billy the Kid. And finally he gave it up, went to Monterey and in six weeks wrote what he called The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones. It's a great book. It should be read."

--Sam Peckinpah

"Neider's book is better than any other book on the subject of men, horses, and death, except Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry. Not a far-fetched comparison when you consider that Neider--though American-raised--was Odessa-born."

--Clive Sinclair, The Independent

"Great Westerns are both mythic and defiantly down to earth, as is this powerful ballet of menace."

--Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

"A tremendous book. It belongs to that massive reassessment you find in mid-century noir, intended for readers who . . . had been force-fed the same myths about who we are and what we were bound to become. Americans, in other words, bloodied victors, who were told they had to act like winners even though victory often doesn't taste or feel like we think it's going to. Neider begins to gently and gentlemanly pull apart ways of looking at our Western stories."

--Will Oldham, from the Foreword

Publisher: McNally Editions

Pub date: 2025-08-05

Length: 216 pages