Bonnie: A Novel

Bonnie: A Novel

“Absorbing...poignant, often heartbreaking...Schwarz is a vivid storyteller.” – The New York Times Book Review The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drowning Ruth vividly evokes the perennially fascinating true crime love affair of Bonnie and Clyde in this suspenseful, gorgeously detailed fictional portrait of Bonnie Parker, one of America’s most enigmatic women. Born in a small town in the desolate reaches of western Texas and shaped by her girlhood in an industrial wasteland on the outskirts of Dallas, Bonnie Parker was a natural performer and a star student. She dreamed of being a movie star or a singer or a poet. But her dramatic nature, contorted by her limited opportunities and her overwhelming love for Clyde Barrow, pushed her into a course from which there was no escape but death. Infusing the psychological acuity of literary fiction with the relentless pacing of a thriller, Bonnie follows Bonnie from her bright, promising youth to her final month of shoot-outs, kidnappings, and desperate car chases through America’s hinterland in the grip of the Great Depression, as the noose of the law tightened around her. Enriched by Christina Schwarz’s extensive research in the footsteps of Bonnie and Clyde and written with her powerful sense of place and time, Bonnie is a plaintive and page-turning account of a woman destroyed by a lethal combination of longing and love. Praise for Bonnie “Bodies fall, blood flies, Bonnie and Clyde sleep in stolen cars and can’t eat in restaurants but so long as they are in the headlines all is well. In Bonnie , Schwarz has created a mesmerizing portrait of a young woman who longs to live a larger life and who almost always acts in her own worst interests. A stunning novel.” —Margot Livesey, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury “Bonnie Parker is better known for how she died than how she lived, but Christina Schwarz remedies that with her magnificent new novel. In exploring Bonnie’s complex inner-life and fascinating story, Schwarz makes this iconic figure relevant to the world we inhabit today. An evocative and absorbing read.” —Greer Kessel Hendricks, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Wife Between Us "Absorbing...poignant, often heartbreaking...Schwarz is a vivid storyteller." – The New York Times Book Review "Expertly magnifies the characters’ desperation and intertwines the excitement of eluding the law with their magnetic sexual attraction. Schwarz’s rich narrative brings fresh life into the notorious tale of two American outlaws." — Publishers Weekly "The novel’s opening offers even those who remember the movie a fresh, touching view of Bonnie before Clyde.” — Kirkus Reveiw Christina Schwarz is the author of five novels, including The Edge of the Earth and the Oprah Book Club selection Drowning Ruth . Born and raised in rural Wisconsin, she lives in southern California. Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1 “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” “ You fall! You fall!” The children, reverential even as they commanded, lifted their eyes and their arms, plumped with sweaters against the chill spring twilight, to the woman who stood over them. Although she was tiny—not even five feet tall and slight as a finch—she was twenty-one years old, and she might have dipped like a lady and sat on her heels to save her skirt or merely laughed and clapped her hands (that’s what the children’s stout mother generally did). Miss Bonnie, however, had a penchant for the dramatic. Throwing her head back and her hands in the air, she crumpled to the ground and lay as if dead. “Agin! Agin!” One of the little boys drummed his feet. Indulgent, she pushed herself up and gathered two grubby hands in her slender fingers. But the back door opened, and the children’s mother stood in it, unknotting her apron strings. “It’s time.” Her east Texas accent stretched and softened the terse statement, but she was a confident, orderly person, and her tone, while not unkind, was firm. All four tousled figures obeyed, although the young woman was obviously reluctant, hanging her blond head and not hurrying, as she resettled her loose dress, a slinky thing some of her friends had brought her, and the plaid jacket that drooped over it. The mother had lent that out of her own closet. “Go on and find yer daddy. He’ll give y’all some milk.” The mother bent to give the last of her children a playful tap on the bottom as he disappeared into the house. She folded her apron over her arm. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Thornton,” she said, “but it’s time.” “All right, Mrs. Adams.” The young woman scuffed her shoes—broken, brown things, shapeless as cow pies, donated by the Ladies Benevolent Society—as they walked over the lawn. Dragging her feet like a child, Mrs. Adams thought, but she couldn’t blame Mrs. Thornton for savoring the out-of-doors. They crossed the yard to the building immediately next door, a stern brick square, its tall windows barred. “Does every town i