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This author appeared at the 2009 festival. Please view the list of authors appearing at this year's festival or see our suggestions for similar authors below.
 Jeff Guinn
In Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, bestselling author Guinn combines exhaustive research with surprising, newly discovered material to tell the real tale of two kids from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more importantly, fame. Their timing could not have been better – the Barrow Gang pulled its first heist in 1932 when most Americans, reeling from the Great Depression, were desperate for escapist entertainment. In the minds of the public, they were cool, calculating bandits who robbed banks and killed cops with equal impunity. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Clyde and Bonnie were perhaps the most inept crooks ever, and their two-year crime spree was as much a reign of error as it was of terror. Lacking the sophistication to plot robberies of big-city banks, the Barrow Gang preyed mostly on small mom-and-pop groceries and service stations. Both were crippled, Clyde from cutting off two of his toes while in prison and Bonnie from a terrible car crash caused by Clyde's reckless driving. Constantly on the run from the law, they lived like animals, camping out in their latest stolen car, bathing in creeks, and dining on cans of cold beans and Vienna sausages. Yet theirs was a genuine love story. Their devotion to each other was as real as their overblown reputation as criminal masterminds was not. A starred review from Publishers Weekly attests that "this intensely readable account deromanticizes two of America's most notorious outlaws without undermining the mystique of the Depression-era gunslingers." Guinn is the bestselling author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction. An award-winning investigative journalist and former Books Editor and Senior Writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he is a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. Guinn is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and lives in Fort Worth.
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