Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde

The best you can hope for from a biographer is that he/she keeps the narrative moving, provides ample details without burying the reader, and remains objective about his subject. Jeff Guinn checks all the boxes here. He ties everything together so seamlessly about Bonnie and Clyde that it's only at the end of the book I realized all the effort that went into piecing together unreliable sources into a coherent story. Bonnie and Clyde became famous to a newer generation thanks to the movie, but the truth was far different--everything except their loyalty to each other and fatalism about dying in a hail of bullets. But Guinn, to his credit, doesn't dwell on the film or its inaccuracies, simply advising readers to watch it for entertainment, not historical, value. Bonnie and Clyde grew up dirt poor in the slums of West Dallas. Both were physically very small people. Initially I felt a little sympathy for Clyde, whose childhood is covered in more depth here than Bonnie's. He came from a Christian family and tried to work straight jobs but would never get ahead in life no matter how hard he worked. I could at least see his motive for turning to crime. It was a practical solution for Clyde, a high-school dropout. Bonnie was smarter but followed Clyde and romanticized crime. Clyde started as a car thief, eventually being sent to prison and the infamous work farm in Texas, where he committed his first murder, killing another convict who repeatedly raped him. Clyde was hardened into a career criminal in prison. He cut off two of his own toes to be free of it but afterwards was constantly harassed by police, keeping him from holding a straight job. Bonnie and Clyde had a rotating crew but were bad at crime. They did a lot of petty holdups, and even their bank robberies were for small amounts. They likened themselves to other well-known criminals of the era but were not in that league. They spent a lot of time driving around and sleeping in stolen cars in fields and bathing in streams. They were always on the run. Clyde was lauded as a great driver, but he always drove too fast. At one point he drove off the road, causing Bonnie's leg to be permanently mangled in the accident. He killed a lot of people, mostly police. There ended up being nothing redeemable about him except perhaps his loyalty to Bonnie, family, and friends. But then he trusted the convict who conspired to lead him into the ambush with police. I came away thinking that both Bonnie and Clyde were resigned to their fate but were also very naive. They believed too much of the hype from newspapers and thought that somehow they would overcome their circumstances, all the while being hunted. They believed in their own luck because they had shot their way free in a couple standoffs, even while other gang members were shot, including Clyde's brother, who was killed. They ultimately spread their bad luck to everyone around them, infecting their families. There was nothing glamorous about their lives, and Guinn's is a depressing story told well.

I just finished this book for the second time, and I enjoyed the read better than the first one. I've long been an enthusiast of 1930s crime books and articles and have read almost everything I could find on Bonnie and Clyde. There are several books about the couple: many of them simply rehash what's been said time and time again; a couple written by B&C family members are obviously biased toward the two criminals, sometimes outright lying; a few, however are excellent, offering new information gained from primary research and a fresh perspective. Guinn's book tops them all. His research is meticulous, and he leaves very few questions unanswered--if any.His covers every shootout, big and small, with great care to get the who shot whom, who missed, how bad were the wounds, etc. correct. It is a huge plus that the man is a very good writer. He brings the events to life--even the ones you've read about many times before. I guarantee that you will find bits and pieces throughout the entire book that you never knew--regardless of how much you think you know about the pair.The climax is, of course, the ambush in which Bonnie and Clyde are gunned down. There's a good chance you've read about it and/or seen it depicted in film and on TV. As good or far-fetched as other accounts may be, Guinn gets it right. From the weapons each of the six posse members used, where, precisely, they were positioned: how many feet apart--Guinn has done his homework and has left nothing uncovered--to who fired first, whose bullet hit which victim and, perhaps most importantly, who fired the final shots into an already dead or dying, Bonnie Parker.Guinn goes further than researching their lives, crimes, and era; he offers keen insight into what Clyde or Bonnie was probably thinking at a certain juncture, why a life was spared or taken, what was running through Frank Hamer's mind before, during, and after the ambush. The author brings everything together and does a remarkably fair job throughout. He leaves no detail out, narrating each moment of each crime to let us see the ugliness, senselessness, and tragedy. And he shows the monster that Clyde Barrow often was. But he also reveals Barrow as a man who cared deeply for his family and Bonnie and who, at least in his own mind, lived by a moral code. Guinn offers no excuses for Bonnie and Clyde.Was society partly to blame for Barrow's decision to become a career criminal? Before you answer, read the chapters about Clyde's incarceration in Huntsville prison and how he lost one job after another because of his past crimes. There is no easy answer, and Guinn knows this. He allows the reader to make up his or her own mind.I recommend this book to anyone who is remotely interested any facet of crime and/or the Depression era. It is, for now, the last and best word on the Bonnie and Clyde story.

I read this on a long plane ride, and it was well written and interesting. I have read several books and of course seen the movie(s). One thing that caused me to buy this was the blurb about how this was a different take on the reality of these two. By the time I finished it, I was actually more impressed than ever with the Arthur Penn movie from 1967 and how attentive it was to their actual history. Yes, it glamorized them, but so did the American people for a year or two during their death spin. These two were occasional bank robbers, and generally klutzy two-bit thieves who lived off gum ball machine money sometimes. The movie certainly de-emphasized or skated past the vicious murder aspect of their spree. It also omitted the fact that they were both seriously physically mangled most of the time, but you can't really sell a movie around that. I'm just referencing the movie because most of the incidents are in there with relative accuracy, and I think it did depict their grubby, inept crime spree, considering these two kept their appearances up throughout (in ways that seem bizarre and impossible considering they were sloshing around in creeks and camping most of the time). I saw the movie when it came out and several times since, and it is one of the great American films. It's interesting that it was an incredible sensation when it came out, due to the prevalence of the same zeitgeist in the late 60's as in the early 30's concerning rich people, police and authority in general.Back to the book. This is by far the most detailed, presumably accurate, and compelling print version of this story I have read. It has a few strange typos here and there, which seems odd for a book that has been digitized. Anyway, I'm happy I spent the money for it, and well worth reading on an 8 hour flight.

This is a great read from Jeff Guinn and highly recommended. Warren Beatty's 1967 movie was the first 'X' rated flic' I saw as a teenager here in the UK and, apart from a viewing on TV in the 1970s, it was only recently that I caught up with the film again on Amazon Prime. Overall, I felt that the production had aged well but it wasn't as good as the more recent Kevin Costner take on the story, "The Highwaymen", which i'd viewed about a year ago and which i'd seen for a second time after having watched Beatty's film. Naturally, being a history buff I wondered just how much of both movies was true and how much was simply dramatic licence and so I turned to this book largely on the basis that i'd read Jeff's 'Manson' bio and knew that he was a solid writer and no-frills researcher. I wasn't disappointed - as one reviewer has already noted; the story of Clyde Chestnut Barrow and Bonnie Parker speeds along the parched roads of 1930s Depression America taking in every turn and twist - physically and psychologically - as the rather dim-witted pair wreak havoc on society, themselves and their families. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway they certainly 'ain't' and if one has some sympathies in their early journey and the effects of a brutal capitalistic and legal system, such sympathy is soon left behind with their unforgivable acts of pointless violence. Clyde Barrow seems to be a little man whose physical and psychological stature had to be propped up by driving around with an arsenal of big guns, wearing sharp suits and fast cars. As a criminal he was useless. As for Bonnie Parker, I think Jeff had to struggle to try to figure out just what made her fully tick, just why she seemed to be preset on such personal destruction. Maybe she was living the daydream of her own Hollywood movie that was playing out in the forefront of her mind? To come back to my initial reason for reading this superb book; the Beatty film may have had its glamourisied moments but overall it telescoped a lot of true events into a tighter 90 odd minutes of Hollywood style story-telling with a small ensemble cast. Entertainment rather than solid fact - to pick up on Jeff Guinn's observation. Kevin Costner's was a more expansive retelling but certainly not in total keeping with the finale described in Jeff Guinn's book. For me, historically, "Go Down Together", succinctly sums up the life of Bonnie and Clyde in the passage describing the kidnapping of an innocent couple who, when forced into the gang's car, later described to the press how it smelt of stale, unwashed bodies. Hardly the stuff of Hollywood glamour.

There are two, rather diverging accounts of the the infamous criminals Bonnie and Clyde. The first is almost exclusively the stuff of tabloid fodder and sensationalism, whereas the second.... well, the rather less well known story of two, very human star-crossed lovers. You see Bonnie and Clyde were rather inept criminals; lurching from one botched robbery to the next. It is only due to the amateur policing of the day that they were not caught sooner. The truth is Bonnie and Clyde were two poor kids who refused to accept misery and poverty as their inevitable birthright. Make no mistake though, it is this element of, dare say it, realism and humanity that makes the story more rather than less interesting. Fascinating stuff.

I rarely write book reviews, but I absolutely loved this book. It covers Bonnie and Clyde growing up, their tough home lives and the families and environment that made them the way they are. The detail about their gangs and the way law was enforced then (both in favour of the couple and against) was really interesting, and includes snippets such as why they are known as Bonnie and Clyde, not Clyde and Bonnie. There is a lot of detail in the book but it's very engaging and doesn't become dry - an entertaining read.

Definitely an antidote to the film version! Great research, clearly written and a genuine page turner. Basically a sad and squalid story particularly as time went on.....Clyde wounded and Bonnie struggling to walk after an acid burn from a battery in a car wreck...amazing how easily they seemed to be able to pick up heavy duty weapons like the BAR rifles, over and over...they were fictionalised by the press in their own time it seems....what to conclude? Well better read it yourself....

The book is very well written and gives a lot of context and i found very interesting and relevant to the people that Bonnie and Clyde turned out to be. This seems to be a very well researched book told well and in an engaging way. Wow this review sounds dull in short a great read if you want to know who they were and not just a badly edited script.