Billy's blues

the long version

BILLY’S BLUES, recipient of the 1995 Jerome DeJur Award (previously granted to Oscar Hijuelos and Walter Mosley), is narrated by Walter, a modern day shut-in who suffers from numerous phobias. Safely removed from the late 20th century, Walter spends the day sleeping, reading, and eating, until be becomes obsessed with a famous figure from the late 19th Century: Billy the Kid. The infamous ‘Boy Bandit King’ of the old Southwest, shot dead at the age of twenty-one by Sheriff Pat Garret, who was once a friend. As his life spins out of control, his story is interrupted by increasingly elaborate interpretations of Billy the Kid until it becomes difficult to separate myth from reality and fiction from fact. As Billy the Kid leapt into the pages of history from old dime novels and western folklore, BILLY’S BLUES might become an enfant terrible of literature.