The Outlaw Youngers : a Confederate brotherhood : a biography /

Cole, Jim, John, and Bob Younger of Missouri didn't fit the stereotypical definition of outlaws caught up in the turbulent post-Civil War society in which they lived. Their grandfather had been a judge, their father a respected public servant. Frank and Jesse James were their cousins, and the Youngers were related by marriage to members of the notorious Dalton Gang. In addition to robbing banks and spending time in jails, they staged Wild West shows and tried ranching in Texas. In song and story they matched Buffalo Bill Cody and Daniel Boone. Brant has brought the gun-blazing brothers to life, and with her lucid prose and sharp insight into the period illuminates the dark and violent corridors of American history. ~--Theresa Ducato

First-time author Brant, a Georgia TV writer and producer, claims to have spent more than two decades researching the four Younger brothers--Bob, Cole, Jim and John--ex-Confederate Army guerrillas whose life of crime ended with the famous Northfield, Minn., raid of 1876 in which Bob, Jim and Cole were captured. Affluent, intelligent sons of a respected Missouri family, the foursome were, in Brant's compassionate view, unable to distinguish between wartime and peacetime conduct. She pores over their family tree, and examines the Missouri-Kansas border war's effects on the Youngers. She also traces their involvement with the Frank and Jesse James gang and the lengthy incarcerations of charismatic Cole Younger, who received a pardon in 1903 and died in 1916, and his bookish, brilliant brother Jim, who was paroled in 1901 and committed suicide the following year. Brant's dedication notwithstanding, she proves unable to siftable to sift the significant from the trivial, so that the Younger brothers emerge from her biography as inscrutable as ever. Photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In this in-depth biography, Brant shows that the Younger brothers--Cole, Bob, John, and Jim--were motivated by commitment, and she sets them firmly in the context of their times, clearly explaining how and why the sons of a prominent western Missouri merchant turned to a life of crime in the years following the Civil War. In the process, she also shows what life on the Missouri-Kansas border was like for those who supported the Confederacy. Brant has carefully crafted a comprehensive and informal account based on the available primary sources and has properly qualified many statements for which definitive proof is lacking. She successfully involves readers in the Youngers' story, making this work especially appealing to a general audience. Recommended for most libraries.-- Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.