cover image Doc

Doc

Mary Doria Russell. Random, $26 (416p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6804-3

Russell (Dreamers of the Day) brings lethal Dodge City%C2%A0to life in a colorful group-portrait of famous frontiersmen years%C2%A0before many of them would pass into legend at the%C2%A0O.K. Corral. After a tense childhood in Civil War%E2%80%93torn Georgia and%C2%A0the loss of his beloved mother, young John Henry "Doc" Holliday moves west in hopes of ameliorating the tuberculosis that%C2%A0would eventually kill him, relocating in the late 1870s to%C2%A0Kansas, where he divides his time among his poorly paying vocation of%C2%A0dentistry, lucrative gambling, and his fractious%C2%A0relationship with Kate Harony, a cultured, Hungarian-born prostitute. In a tale notable more for a remarkable cast than orderliness of plot, the%C2%A0rising tension between the corrupt, carousing, and well-armed%C2%A0inhabitants of Dodge and the forces of law represented by the%C2%A0moralistic Wyatt Earp and his brother, Morgan, makes a%C2%A0spectacular background to a memorable year-in-the-life tale%C2%A0of a fiery young Southern gentleman whose loyalty to his%C2%A0friends and love of music outshine even his fragile health%C2%A0and the whiskey-soaked violence of the western frontier. (May)
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