Jerome Charyn: Darlin' Bill (USA 1980)

From the Publisher:
In his new novel, Jerome Charyn masterfully blends fact and fiction into a novel of adventure land the pursuit of love uniquely a part of the American ethos. Darlin' Bill recreates -- and reincarnates -- the life of the legendary hero of the wild West, James Butler Hickok -- also known as "Wild Bill" - whose much-bandied exploits as daring Union spy, ruthless Indian fighter, inveterate gambler and ladies' man spread his fame and infamous fortune throughout the land and straight into the heart of the story's fictional heroine, one Sally Ovenshine, Bill's sensitively conjured lover.

Spun out of the very grist and guts of the American west, with a wealth of lore and literary grace, Jerome Charyn has shaken down the myth of the west to its rawboned reality, creating a life and a story that are earthy, real, funny -- and at times, heartbreaking. Darlin' Bill is the latest reason why Jerome Charyn will be read by our "children and grandchildren along with the Bellows and the Updikes and the Faulkners and the Hemingways" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

Jerome Charyn: Darlin' Bill. A Love Story of the Wild West. New York: Arbor House, 1980, ISBN: 0877952833, 320 p., $11.95.