Sundance: A Novel
In 1913, Harry Longbaugh, aka the Sundance Kid, gets out of prison in Wyoming and goes looking for the love of his life, Etta Place. No, he didn’t die in Bolivia, and Sundance is Fuller’s speculation on what might have happened. Sundance was devoted to Etta and visited her regularly while she lived. Then, two years earlier, she moved to New York City, and her letters mysteriously stopped. Sundance digs up old loot from a train robbery to fund his search and turns New York upside down. Etta left a curious trail, weaving among feminists, anarchists, and Wobblies—and more unsavory types as well. Sundance deduces that she fears for her life and is leaving a coded trail. As an alternative history, the novel isn’t convincing; Sundance just seems too gentlemanly, smart, and cultured. However, as a man looking for a lost wife in early-twentieth-century New York, Fuller’s version of Sundance is compelling. And Fuller’s research, encompassing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, early feminism, and even New York’s amazing subways, is exemplary. --John Mort