New West Book Review

The Sundance Kid’s Lady: Gerald Kolpan’s “Etta”

By Jenny Shank, 3-23-09

Etta
by Gerald Kolpan
Ballantine Books, 336 pages, $25

Etta Place was a mystery woman, an associate of Butch Cassidy and Harry Longbaugh (the Sundance Kid) about whom little is known.  She was beautiful—a famous photograph of her with Longbaugh attests to this fact.  Pinkerton detectives pursued her for her crimes as an outlaw, and she traveled with Longbaugh to New York and Argentina.  No one knows what became of her—how long she lived, where in the world she ended up, whether or not she had children.  This makes her a perfect subject for Gerald Kolpan’s first novel, and it’s evident that he had great fun filling in the gaps in Etta’s life.  The story he spins in Etta is an enjoyable romp that’s part Wild West narrative and part romance.

In Kolpan’s imagining, Etta began life as a Philadelphia debutante named Lorinda Jameson, trained by her father to ride horses and shoot guns.  When she’s orphaned by her father’s suicide, she learns that he was in debt to the mafia, and she assumes a new identity and flees West.  A family friend arranges for her to become a Harvey Girl, an employee in one of the many railroad cafés run by the Fred Harvey Company. 

Kolpan writes, “A woman who worked for Harvey was not merely a waitress and was never to be referred to as such.  She was a Harvey Girl, a spotless symbol of all that was sanitary and civilized, even here in the wilderness: the American ideal laden down with steak and eggs.” This entire opening episode is one of the most engrossing and enjoyable of the book, as Etta is trained in the Harvey company’s exacting standards, she is sent to work in Grand Junction, Colo., and she befriends the laconic Laura Bullion, who, like Etta, will become an outlaw in the Wild Bunch.  Kolpan portrays Etta as a refined, intelligent woman who speaks as properly as she rides a horse.  It’s refreshing that he’s taken this approach with her, as he could have easily portrayed her as a prostitute, as some historians speculate the real Etta was.

Kolpan launches the former debutante into her outlaw life in a plausible way—a powerful man in the town Etta works in becomes enamored of her, she rebuffs him, and then he attempts to rape her.  The consequences of her self-defense are such that she is forced to take off with Laura Bullion and her lover, Ben Kilpatrick, and join the Wild Bunch in their outlaw encampment, Hole-in-the-Wall, in Wyoming territory.  Here Etta meets the love of her life, Harry Longbaugh, the Sundance Kid.

Kolpan uses a flexible narrative technique to tell the story, weaving in Etta’s diary entries, Longbaugh’s letters to his family, third person description of events, Pinkerton Detective Agency memorandums, and newspaper articles to piece together the tale.  For the most part this works well, as it allows Kolpan to show the mysterious woman at the center of his story from a number of angles, and Kolpan has done an expert job in capturing the voice of the period he’s writing about.  The only detriment to this technique is that often when Etta is facing a moment of crisis, Kolpan distances the narrative from her, relying on newspaper articles or observer’s account of events rather than sticking closely to Etta’s perspective.  I’d have liked to learn more of Etta’s thoughts about her transition to becoming an outlaw.  As it is, the narrative skips from offering Etta’s thoughts during the attempted rape scene to when Etta is a happily ensconced outlaw.

One other flaw of Etta is how frequently the protagonist runs into and befriends famous historical figures that there’s no evidence the real Etta Place actually knew.  When she has her picture taken, not just any photographer takes it, but Alfred Stieglitz himself, the famous artist and husband of Georgia O’Keefe.  At one point, Etta is sent to New York to safeguard the gang’s treasure.  In New York, Etta is friendless, biding her time and keeping a low profile until Longbaugh returns, but the one person she happens to meet is Eleanor Roosevelt, and they embark on a passionate friendship that culminates in Roosevelt saving Etta from jail through the use of her super-power-like social and political connections. 

Etta seeks work and ends up impersonating Annie Oakley in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, an episode that actually works well in the narrative, until Kolpan has her save President Theodore Roosevelt from an assassination attempt.  By the time Etta’s in Argentina and starts hobnobbing with Trotsky, the trope has grown annoying. 
Inserting lots of famous people into fictional historical novels seems to be a common crutch these days.  Instead of investing the book with greater interest, however, this technique detracts, as it allows the author to avoid building characters through detail and action, and instead rely on the reader’s outside knowledge of the famous person.  Etta would have been a stronger book if Kolpan had instead devoted his energies to delving more deeply in his protagonist’s mind and heart.

Despite these shortcomings as a literary work, Etta is great fun, and its dime novel cliffhangers and villains entertain.  The story makes for a first-class tall tale, and at times Kolpan creates moments in Etta Place’s life that are so convincing you wonder if he’s hit upon some of the truth behind the real woman.

Gerald Kolpan will appear at the Tattered Cover (Colfax) on April 23 at 7:30 p.m.

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