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Journey of the Dead Hardcover – January 1, 1998

by Loren D. Estleman (Author)

3.9 26 ratings

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An ancient Spanish alchemist searching for the secrets of the gods, and Pat Garrett, the man who killed Billy the Kid, travel together and separately in their quests for answers to age-old questions. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA-In this elegantly conceived western, Billy the Kid's death haunts his killer until such time as Pat Garrett, the murderer, is assassinated-by Billy's ghost. Estleman presents this tale through the testimonial manuscript of an ancient Spaniard, Francisco de la Zaragoza, of Durango, Mexico, already into his second century when he meets Pat Garrett soon after Billy's death. In spite of these character oddities and plot spins, Estleman's book makes quick and absorbing reading, carrying readers straight into the Southwest of the late 19th century, where men necessarily feared for their lives even in the company of their closest buddies and women were relegated-here quite literally-to the roles of whore or mother. Teens who haven't had the opportunity to become acquainted with this uniquely American genre can get an excellent first taste of it here. However, in keeping with our contemporary mores, Estleman allows his character to be shown in sexual congress, something Zane Grey would never have done.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

As he shows here once more, the prolific Estleman (Billy Gashade, 1997, etc.) has no rival--not even Louis L'Amour--in evoking the American Southwest. With hard-rubbed dialogue as bright as a new-minted Indian-head penny, this latest epic is narrated by the alchemist Francisco de la Zaragoza, Viceroy in Absentia, Durango, Mexico- -who just happens to be 129 years old. The viceroy's tale chronicles the life of his sometime friend and yarn-swapper Sheriff Pat Garrett, who killed Billy Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid. The book's title is taken from La Jornada del Muerto, a long, sun-hammered passage of white sand trickling through the New Mexico desert like an alchemist's athanor, where the blood bubbles and human clay might perhaps turn to gold if the spirit were pure enough. Despite that, the invincible Pat Garrett's whole life could be viewed as a kind of sun-baked torture relieved only by whiskey, the warm Spanish blood of his wife Apolinaria, and his six children, while many of the outstanding incidents of his life take place on that blazing white sand of La Jornada, including his eventual murder at age 65. The episodic story is strung together by Garrett's nightmares, during which he's visited time and again by the ghost of the 21-year-old Bonney. Vignettes include Sheriff Pat's tracking of his friend Bonney through territory after territory; Bonney's slaying; Pat's being hired to slaughter buffalo and later to protect the herds of a cattlemen's association; his fruitless tracking of the killers of Colonel Albert Fountain and his young son on La Jornada; his attempt to irrigate the dry land; and his meetings with Governor John Nance Garner and later with President Teddy Roosevelt. Style to burn, talk that haunts. Deserves blue ribbons and rosettes. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Forge; First Edition (January 1, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 251 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312859996
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312859992
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,563,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #37,314 in Westerns (Books)
- #188,710 in American Literature (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 26 ratings

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Loren D. Estleman

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Loren D. Estleman graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Journalism. In 2002, his alma mater presented him with an honorary doctorate in letters. He left the job market in 1980 to write full time, after a few years spent "pounding out beat-the-train journalism" during his day job as a reporter before going home and writing fiction at night.

His first novel was published in 1976, and has been followed by 80 books and hundreds of short stories and articles. His series include novels about Detroit detective Amos Walker, professional killer Peter Macklin, L.A. film detective and amateur sleuth Valentino, and the Detroit crime series. On the western side is the U.S. Deputy Marshal Page Murdock series. Additionally, he's written dozens of stand-alone novels.

His books have been translated into 27 languages and have won multiple Shamus, Spur, Western Heritage, and Stirrup awards. He has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Edgar Allan Poe Award. In 2012, the Western Writers of America honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

He lives in Michigan and is married to writer Deborah Morgan. Find out more about Estleman and his books on his website: lorenestleman.com

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

26 global ratings

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larry broder

good writing

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2023

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as usual---good story. good writing

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Wesley Clark

Could have done without the alchemy!

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2019

This book was the 1999 Spur Award winner for Best Western Novel. It wasn't bad, but I thought the device of having an ancient alchemist as an occasional narrator was unnecessary to the story. It would have been a better work were it what it really wants to be: a straight ahead novel about the life of lawman and rancher Pat Garrett (the man who killed Billy the Kid). That aspect of the book is successful; the occult stuff isn't.

I think I like this book the least of the various Spur Award Westerns I've read thus far.

Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2014

Verified Purchase

What's a great Western and why do they work?
You know it when you see it, read it, hear it.
Go for this and I think you won't be disappointed if you love the form.

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S. Hatfield

Estleman channels Jodorowsky

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2015

Verified Purchase

A wonderful magical realist take on the later life of Pat Garrett. Don't expect your standard western with the usual tropes rearranged.

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John Bonavia

Words can be magic even if alchemy fails

Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2008

I am not one of those who are deep into the story of Billy the Kidd and Pat Garrett, his executioner. But even so, I can tell that this book offers a truly new and powerful vision of Garrett's life.

Estleman is really immersed in the Old West, its nature and essence, from its early days in the late nineteenth century, all saloons and brass cuspidors, to the early twentieth with its Eastern businessmen, snorting automobiles and rumors of manned flight. Within this, he traces the parallel arc of Garrett's life, intertwined with the lives of so many others of that time, with a true sense of time's passing, and deep compassion for "the long man" and his holding to his inner core through many hard times and betrayals.

Garrett always corrects those who mention Billy Bonney as an "enemy." No, the word is "friend." He is tormented all his life by dreams of The Kid, sometimes so real he must rise in a sweat and check the place he is staying to be sure it was a dream.

Those dreams are what tie him into a truly original aspect of this book: the extended metaphor drawn from the once-famous practice of Alchemy. The narrator is an enigmatic Spanish- or Mexican- American figure, who has lived, he claims, through three centuries and traces his ancestry back to famed alembicists of the past. The Garrett saga is set out in three serial parts named Lead, Iron, and Gold, corresponding to three ascending levels of "nobility" in alchemical lore. ("Lead" is a great heading for the early period dominated by the bullet!) Yet paradoxically, at the end the alchemist deserts his craft to indicate that it is all a myth, that "gold" - that is, the absolute truth about Garrett's ending - is likely forever unknowable, just as the transmutation of base metal into gold is impossible.

Along the way, we are treated to wonderfully close descriptions of places, character, and events. Estleman has a fine hand for words and makes us share the sights, sounds and smells of the West, never sliding over into pretentiousness. Here's Garrett's wife making their home out of a long abandoned adobe ranch house, which "...had become a shelter for every variety of Southwestern wildlife; with a broom she drove out the porcupines and badgers, tied her hair up in a kerchief and climbed into the rafters to poke the little brown bats free of their inverted perches, then swept out the cobwebs and dried dung and scoured the floors and whitewashed the walls. She hung Indian rugs, blacked the stove and embroidered new sheets for the master bedroom and the guest room where John Chisum stayed when he came to visit on his way back from decorating the cottonwoods in old Mexico with rustlers from north of the border." (However, virtue is not always rewarded: for a spell later in Garrett's life he spends more time with a sex-hungry ex-pro than with his hard-working but sexually unresponsive wife.)

If I had to summarize the overall tone of the story, I think I might say "melancholy" or "elegaic." There's no getting away from the fact that Pat Garrett's life was more troubled than happy. But the excellence of the writing ensures the reader's pleasure nevertheless: towards the very end Garrett and a treacherous companion pass a decayed boomtown "inhabited now by prospectors motivated more by habit than hope, prostitutes too old and fat to move on, and the odd armadillo..."

Read it and enjoy. Ignore the few odd misspellings, though it is surprising that a writer so steeped in the Old West could list another as "Zane Gray" - even I know it's "Grey" and have read a few.

3 people found this helpful

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Ronny Kiehn

Boring and hard to follow

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 1999

The secondary characters were poorly develped and the story line was hard to follow, if there was a story line. I wouldn't even rate it a one star. The book was a complete bore.

One person found this helpful

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Jerry Guild

Is it Fact? Is it Legend? Is it Fiction?

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2007

This is probably the most unusual book on The Old West that I've ever come across.To say that I enjoyed it immensely would be an understatement.Although the stories about Sheriff Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid have been told and retold by so many that at this stage it is almost impossible to sort the truth from the legend. In this book,the author introduces come very imaginative fiction to create a whole new approach to the story. You may not resolve much of the things that have been written; but that is beside the point, and not the reason for me thinking so much of this book. The author gets one right inside the inner thoughts and personalities of all the characters he covers.I found the book filled with historical facts, but it reads like a work of fiction.There are scenes after scenes that are so well described,that can only be described as masterfully imagined and written.I find it hard to think of any other western that has so many ,well written lines as this.The scene created with Garrett's meeting with President Teddy Roosevelt in the railway car will be unforgettable to me. The introduction of the alchemist is a brilliant idea and makes the whole story totally different fom anything else I've ever come across in a western.Then there is the continually reoccurring encounters Pat has with Billy Bonney in his dreams.

In this unusually crafted saga,Estleman takes us along with Pat Garrett and follow him from his earliest days until his death in 1909,basically all throughout the period generally known as the Old West.At times, the historical information is detailed like a history book,but totally without the drudgery we are used to.At other times the book gets fanciful and you can let your imagination carry you along with the thoughts and visions Eatleman is a master at creating.

Estleman ha also done an excellent job of tying in events in The Old West with other historical events in the country.Range wars,cattle ranches and drives,saloon and frontier life and and all its hardships,joys and dreams.He folds into it, politics,both locally and federally;and even carries us through the development and impact of various types of ranching and livestock,the introduction of irrigation ,the introduction of electricity and even the automobile. All this is accomplished in only 250 pages and is so well written,it is impossible to put down once started.

If there was ever a book that looks like it would be a great movie;this has got to be it.

I often like to quote a few of my favorite lines from a book;but this one has so many,I am completely at loss to choose a few from so many. All I can suggest is that you read it and find them yourself;the book is loaded with them.

This is the first of Estleman's books I've read;but won't be the last.

9 people found this helpful

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