Join us for the monthly KT Book Club Meeting! We’ll meet in our office in Sun City West for light refreshments and a lively blend of book discussion and social time. With a focus on books set in the American Southwest, we’ll showcase a new book every month that inspires further exploration. East Valley people, do not hesitate to reserve your seat. Free transportation will be provided to Mesa, Scottsdale and Phoenix participants, on a first come, first serve basis. Meeting begins: 10:15 a.m.
Depart: Mesa 9 a.m. Scts 9:30 a.m. Phx 9:45 a.m. R: 1 p.m.
August Title
Epitaph
A Novel of the O.K. Corral
by: Mary Doria Russell
Mary Doria Russell, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Sparrow, returns with Epitaph. An American Iliad, this richly detailed and meticulously researched historical novel continues the story she began in Doc, following Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday to Tombstone, Arizona, and to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
A deeply divided nation. Vicious politics. A shamelessly partisan media. A president loathed by half the populace. Smuggling and gang warfare along the Mexican border. Armed citizens willing to stand their ground and take law into their own hands. . . .
That was America in 1881.
All those forces came to bear on the afternoon of October 26 when Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers faced off against the Clantons and the McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona. It should have been a simple misdemeanor arrest. Thirty seconds and thirty bullets later, three officers were wounded and three citizens lay dead in the dirt.
Wyatt Earp was the last man standing, the only one unscathed. The lies began before the smoke cleared, but the gunfight at the O.K. Corral would soon become central to American beliefs about the Old West.
Epitaph tells Wyatt’s real story, unearthing the Homeric tragedy buried under 130 years of mythology, misrepresentation, and sheer indifference to fact. Epic and intimate, this novel gives voice to the real men and women whose lives were changed forever by those fatal thirty seconds in Tombstone. At its heart is the woman behind the myth: Josephine Sarah Marcus, who loved Wyatt Earp for forty-nine years and who carefully chipped away at the truth until she had crafted the heroic legend that would become the epitaph her husband deserved.
REVIEWS:
“With vast amounts of research and a poetic prose line … Russell has crafted an epic tale … a stunning performance.”
— Washington Post
“Russell catalogs [the action] with power and beauty and a calculating eye until, as a reader, …understand something primal about the making of famous moments: That the causes are never as simple as you want, and outcomes never as clean or clear.”
— NPR Books
“Whatever it is you think you know about the gunfight at the OK Corral, however it is you think you feel about it, forget it all… Mary Doria Russell has 600 pages to burn a fresh understanding into you, and she uses every one of them.”
— NPR, Best Books of 2015
Northwest Valley:
Sundome Plaza
13547 W. Camino Del Sol
Sun City West, AZ 85375
Located in the heart of Sun City West at the Sundome Plaza Shopping Center.
Scottsdale:
La Quinta Inn & Suites
8888 E Shea Blvd
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
The Scottsdale pickup location can be easily reached via AZ 101/Pima Freeway. Exit the freeway at Shea. The La Quinta Hotel is located at the northeast corner of AZ 101 and Shea Blvd.
Phoenix:
Paradise Valley Community Center
17402 N. 40th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85032
The Paradise Valley Community Center is easily found on 40th Street, north of Bell Road. No overnights. No Late-nights
Mesa:
Mesa Doubletree Hotel
1011 W. Holmes Ave
Mesa, AZ 85210
This is the Fiesta Mall region, and the Hilton Hotel is easily viewed from the U.S. 60/Superstition Freeway. Exit the freeway at Alma School and head east to Holmes. Park and wait for the bus at the west end of the hotel parking lot.