Table of Contents

IN

About the Author

Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City in 1927 and had already begun his writing career by the time he graduated from Yale University in 1950. The following year, he was a founder of The Paris Review. Besides At Play in the Fields of the Lord, which was nominated for the National Book Award, he published six other works of fiction, including Far Tortuga and Killing Mister Watson. Matthiessen's parallel career as a naturalist and explorer resulted in numerous widely acclaimed books of nonfiction, among them The Tree Where Man Was Born, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and The Snow Leopard, which won it. Matthiessen died in 2014.

Reviews

The 20th book by the extraordinarily versatile author of fiction ( At Play in the Fields of the Lord ; Far Tortuga ) and nonfiction ( The Snow Leopard ; In the Spirit of Crazy Horse ) is a curious hybrid. ``As a creature from prehistory is recreated from scattered bits of bone fleshed out on an armature of theory, so my idea of Mister Watson has been reimagined from the few hard `facts' . . . '' writes Matthiessen in an introductory note. Set in the Florida Everglades a century ago, the novel is based on the legend of Edgar J. Watson, the man said to have gunned down female outlaw Belle Starr. Matthiessen gives voices to a gamut of characters who knew Watson, and while it is intended that the book read with the deadpan of an oral history, those imagined--or ``reimagined''--witnesses provide a rich chorus. The book starts with the murder of Watson by a group of his neighbors. The rest of the story is a slow piecing together of the puzzle that explains how this event came to pass. We never hear directly from Watson; he takes form slowly as facets of his life emerge, until his still-opaque profile remains outlined by all we have heard. With more artistry than In Cold Blood but with some of the same concerns, this is an imaginative and haunting evocation of a time and place, and the paradox of the tenderness and brutality with which real and imagined lives are filled. (June)

Around the turn of the century southern Florida was an inhospitable region populated by Seminole Indians, runaway slaves, Civil War deserters, and other misfits and desperados. ``Suspect everyone and ask no questions'' was the rule, and those foolish enough to ask questions of Edgar J. Watson, a hard-drinking sugar-cane planter rumored to be The Man Who Shot Belle Starr, were quickly silenced. But as the railroad brought civilization ever closer, Watson's brand of frontier justice seemed increasingly out of place, even to his admirers. Thus, the community's first civic act was to be a ritual murder. Matthiessen's fact-based historical novel assembles the evidence: newspaper clippings, diary extracts, the testimony of neighbors and kin. In constant deep focus is the spectacle of the wanton destruction of the ecosystem--a process well underway by 1910. An important and provocative book from the author of Far Tortuga ( LJ 4/15/75). Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/90.-- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles

YA-- More than 20 men wait in ambush as Mister Watson steps ashore and is shot dead. From this beginning, the story of Edgar J. Watson is told through the recollections of his daughter and neighbors, and by reports from magazines, letters, and other historical papers. This is a study rich in history, social studies, ecology, and nature of the The Ten Thousand Islands area of southwestern Florida from 1890-1910. It was a haven for escapees and renegades, and poor treatment of Indians, blacks, and half-breeds was accepted and expected. When Watson arrived there in the 1890s, he was thought of as quiet and friendly. But an aura of danger grew with the stories told and retold about him. When it was alleged that he killed 57 people (including Belle Starr), the tales became folk legend. The setting and characters are fully drawn as Watson's menacing power grows steadily. Because ten characters tell and retell in dialect their versions of the Watson story, YAs will need to persevere with this demanding format. If they do, they will know the Florida era that ended when Mister Watson was killed. --Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VA