The Avenging Fury of the Plains (Nonfiction)
Dennis John McLelland
Categories: Book Reviews
By: Richard H. Dillon 04/01/2008
Infinity Publishing, $16.95, Softcover.
McLelland’s book shows us that Crow Killer (the 1950 book that was the basis for the 1970 film, Jeremiah Johnson) was a work of historical fiction. Johnston (not Johnson), whose first name was John (not Jeremiah), had no vendetta against the Crows, nor was he a cannibal; he once joked about eating the liver of a Sioux victim. The real Johnston was a whaler, mountain man, scout, miner, trapper, a woodhawk who gathered fuel for Missouri River steamboats and a whiskey peddler before becoming a justice of the peace and a deputy sheriff. The title of this work comes from an ad about Johnston when he appeared in a Wild West show. I agree that it is important to know the truth about Johnston, but McLelland’s zealous refuting of Crow Killer results in a mix of facts, conjectures and digressions that end up as an amateurish and awkwardly organized text.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT