Four against the West The true saga of a frontier family that reshaped the nation--and created a legend

The Wild West of American imagination was peopled with a wide cast of larger-thanlife, sometimes mythic figures. In Four against the West, journalist and popular historian Pappalardo tells the story of Judge Roy Bean, intertwined with the lives of his three brothers: James, his life a constant struggle to succeed in business and local politics in Missouri, Sam, who loved New Mexico and its people, and Joshua, who served as the first mayor of San Diego. The book rotates among the four brothers as their lives diverge, and occasionally reconnect, while pursuing material, political, and social success during the nineteenth-century westward territorial expansion of the United States. Pappalardo writes with crisp brevity, creating a narrative which at its best brings the lived experience of the time to life. His claim that Roy Bean's fame only merits a footnote as a cultural curiosity is stronger than his corresponding assertion that the story of the four brothers is of greater importance. But the book is an entertaining read, particularly for aficionados of western history.

Parallel lives of Roy Bean, the self-styled "law west of the Pecos," and his three very different brothers. Born in Kentucky, the Bean brothers--James, Samuel, Joshua, and Roy--were living emblems of westward expansion. All possessed, to varying degrees, something of the rule-evading, even lawless ethos of the Anglo conquest, from outright murder to the mere gaming of the system. Trade brought some brothers west, war others; several thrived in an economy of contraband goods, stolen livestock, and enslaved people. Indeed, Roy, living in Confederate-inclined New Mexico, "dream[ed] aloud of importing slaves to create a lavish ranch," writes Pappalardo. Roy, the youngest, is the brother best known by name today--but in almost every respect incorrectly, for the supposed lawman, while worse than most of the criminals in his corner of Texas, was a genius at self-invention. On that note, all the brothers were skilled at convincing their fellow westward-ho types that they were natural leaders of men, and indeed a couple of them were, elected to office in California and New Mexico. For his part, Roy, writes Pappalardo, paraphrasing a contemporary, was "a scoundrel capable of bravery and chicanery." The author's penchant for dramatizing proves wearing ("head flung backward at an impossible angle, the red crescent of his slit throat stretched open and yawning"). Still, fans of the Wild West as viewed under the revisionist lens will applaud Pappalardo's dismantling of Roy Bean's mostly self-made myth, promoted uncritically and even embellished by John Huston's 1972 filmThe Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, with Paul Newman turning a very bad guy into a lovable eccentric. A bit overcooked, but of interest to readers of Western Americana. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.