The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje

When
11 a.m. to noon, Nov. 21, 2013

“Drawing on contemporary accounts, period photographs, dime novels, and his own prodigious fund of empathy and imagination, Michael Ondaatje’s historical novel (his first, originally published in 1970) traces the legendary outlaw’s passage across the blasted landscape of 1880 New Mexico and the collective unconscious of his country. “[Ondaatje] doesn’t so much tell the story as splice it together, weaving together moments and sequences, cutting between emotions, or from image to image, shaking the kaleidoscope for maximum effect. The book doesn’t read like a film, but it stays in the imagination like one, dream-like, so that its characters start to haunt us.” —Richard Rayner, Los Angeles Times