September 1, 2018
The James Gang and the Dalton Gang had nothing on the Parker Gang: intelligent, careful planners, and, unlike other Old West bands of outlaws, the Parker Gang was all female. Having been robbed of her ranch by an unscrupulous neighbor, Margaret Garet Parker seeks her revenge by robbing his bank. Seeing that she has a knack for the outlaw life, Garet, along with her makeshift family of outcasts, robs stagecoaches and even more banks. After encountering the gang midrobbery, writer Grace asks to join them. Garet, facing a terminal illness, decides that Grace is the perfect person to record her story. This one impulsive decision sets the gang on a collision course with other outlaws and Pinkerton detectives. The overall plot is fast paced, despite the format: the story is told through diary entries, newspaper clippings, and WPA slave-narrative interviews, which adds some distance between the reader and characters, and the story is bookended with the viewpoint of a modern historian who discovers Garet's diary. Readers who relish an unusual narrative structure will enjoy this unique take on the traditional western.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)