Crockett of Tennessee
Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier. That snippet of song and the Disney television show for which it was the theme have become David Crockett's most enduring legacies. Judd, a prolific and very popular author of paperback westerns, sets out to change all that with this carefully researched historical novel offering a much less mythological profile of the remarkable Tennessean. Judd begins with Crockett as a young boy searching for his runaway dog. Soon it's David himselfa 14-year-old on a cattle drive to Virginiawho feels the wanderlust. Then come the adventures for which he became famous as an explorer, soldier, and Indian fighter. Judd also explores Crockett's political career, with emphasis on what his outspoken opposition to Andrew Jackson ultimately cost him, and, of course, he writes in great detail of Crockett's heroic demise as a volunteer at the Alamo; more interestingly, though, Judd explains how Crockett came to be there and what his plans were had he survived. Though the narrative flow in this very long novel occasionally gets bogged down in the abundance of historical detail, it is a heartfelt attempt to glimpse the soul of an American hero. By any standard, Judd succeeds. An afterword explains where Judd has fictionalized the storymainly in the creation of Crockett's pal, the rogue and scoundrel Persius Tarr.Wes Lukowsky