Amy Harmon grew up in a remote Utah valley, very close to where the famed outlaw Butch Cassidy really lived. Quite a few years before her, of course. The folklore surrounding his Robin Hood reputation has always fascinated her. She's far too young to have seen the famous movie starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford first time round, but she's excavated the history and shed a whole new light on the story and her latest book, The Outlaw Noble Salt. Hi, I'm your host, Jenny Wheeler, and in this week's Binge Reading episode, Amy talks about the mystery surrounding Robert LeRoy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, the American outlaw, train robber and leader of a gang called The Wild Bunch. It's officially recorded that he died in a shootout with local authorities in Bolivia in 1908. But did he really? Amy's book is a fascinating and heart-touching re-imagining of the story. Mystery and Thriller Giveaway Our Giveaway this week - We always have free books to Giveaway -. is Mystery Thriller And Suspense Freebies. MYSTERY, THRILLER & SUSPENSE FREEBIES And the range is huge with something to suit every taste ,from historicals like Poisoned Legacy, Book One in my Of Gold& Blood Gold Rush romance series through to cozies and contemporary psychological thrillers. Find the link to download these books in the show notes for the episode on the website. The Joys Of Binge Reading.com. DOWNLOAD FREE BOOKS Before we get to Amy, a reminder. You can help defray the costs of the production of the show by buying me a cup of coffee at buymeacoffee.com/jennywheelx. And if you enjoy the show, leave us a review, so others will find us too. Word of mouth is still the best recommendation and the way for others to find the show and discover great books they will love to read. Links to items mentioned in the show Movie: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064115/ Folklore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Eliot Ness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Ness Gladys Knight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Knight Books Amy has loved in the past or is reading now: Louise L'Amour - Western classics: https://www.louislamour.com/ Lucy Maud Montgomery: https://lmmontgomery.ca/about/lmm/her-life Anne of Green Gables: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anne-of-Green-Gables Baroness Orczy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel Paullina Simons The Bronze Horseman: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/47499.Paullina_Simons Susanna Kearsley: susannakearsley.com Poets: William Butler Yeats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats Emily Dickinson: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emily-Dickinson Introducing author Amy Harmon Amy Harmon: re-imagining the Burch Cassidy story But now here’s Amy. Hello there, Amy, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Amy Harmon: I am so excited to talk to you, Jenny. Jenny Wheeler: You've written more than 20 books and the most recent one is The Outlaw Noble Salt, and it retells the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance story, The Wild Bunch Story. If we are of a certain age, we saw the movie years ago, so it's well known. What did you feel you could bring new to it? Amy Harmon: I have always been drawn to the story, and I think it's because I grew up in a valley, just north of the valley where Butch Cassidy, who wasn't known as Butch Cassidy in his early years, he was Robert Parker, lived. He was born very close to where I was born, a hundred years apart. We were born in small town Utah at the end of the Wild West era. He was the last of this very short time period that defined in the West. And I have always been interested in him. I've always felt a connection to him. Beyond just of course, the movie which came out in 1969, which predates me a little bit. I didn't grow up with the movie, but it was very much the Western lore that is part of this place where I grew up, and so I think I've always been drawn to him. Living near the Butch Cassidy valley Every year my family goes through that valley on our way to California. It's our family reunion trip. My parents were both raised in California, so we all gather there and every year I hit that valley about the same time coming home. The valley has called me and probably two years ago coming through it, I just felt called to it and decided was I was going to answer the call and start looking more into the story of Butch Cassidy and what I could add that was beyond maybe what people thought they knew. Because there's a lot more to him than I think people know. Jenny Wheeler: Did you feel that, Butch’s reputation needed rescuing or that the image that had been left of him wasn't quite true to what you think he deserved? Amy Harmon: I think Butch's reputation was a mixed one, In Utah he had quite a good reputation. And that comes through in the story. Even though he was an outlaw, he had this Robin Hood reputation, this Gentleman Outlaw if you will. He was very, respected in some quarters because he lived with a certain ethos of ‘do no harm.’ So he robbed, but he gave his winnings to the poor and he didn't harm anyone and he didn't hurt anyone. It was this part of his personality. That was also interesting to me, that he had these lines that he drew for himself. What I wanted to resuscitate or what I wanted to maybe explore was the way that Butch Cassidy felt about himself. And the more research I did, the more the sense of regret that I felt. And I think there's a bit of channeling that happens when you really dig deep into someone else's life. You start to feel the way they may have felt. And I really felt his regret. I think he got pulled into a life that he didn't realize he was being pulled into. Butch Cassidy - living with regret And that sense of that it was too late really came through. When I went through his history, I really felt like he regretted the choices that he made as a young man and then could never quite get out of the life and that he'd made for himself. And so, this was my chance to give him a different ending. And I felt that sense of euphoria or this sense of maybe I gave him some redemption that life didn't give him. Jenny Wheeler: Yes, and in the book, it comes through that I believe that he committed virtually no murders himself. He got into The Wild Bunch gang as they were called, and there were some mean-spirited men there who killed without too much conscience, and of course he was associated with those men, is how you see it. Yeah, he was associated. I don't know that the things that even The Wild Bunch that the men he was associated with, I don't think any of those things happened when he was with those men. That was a line. and he's adamant about that, the people he was with or got wrapped up in, as far as the robberies he was pretty adamant about that. When he was on a job that those things didn't happen. And of course at the end of the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the movie, there's a shootout and if you're shooting, somebody's gonna get hurt. I don't know how much he can really claim that he didn't hurt anyone. Amy Harmon: But that was the reputation, that he never killed anyone. Did Butch die in a Bolivian shoot out? Jenny Wheeler: In the book he's got a brother who also causes him some difficulties. Did he have a brother? Is that a true part of the story? Amy Harmon: He, Butch Cassidy or Robert Parker, was the oldest of 13 children. He had lots of brothers and lots of sisters, but there was a brother named Dan that wanted to follow in his brother's footsteps and he ran him off. He was adamant about his brother not getting involved. And so it was from that I then took the inspiration for the character Van. I didn't want to make a villain out of a real person. And I do think that Dan Parker went on and made good. He struggled a bit and got involved with things he shouldn't. And like I said, Butch Cassidy had to run him off. But it gave me some inspiration for some characters that were fictionalized in the story. Jenny Wheeler: As you mentioned, in the movie, sadly I'm old enough to have actually seen that movie when I was a younger person, but in the movie, they do die in the shootout in Bolivia, and that's a long standing point of discussion whether that really did happen or not. I read a little bit online and one of the thoughts was that they have since exhumed bones down there and found that they were not Robert Parker's bones. Tell us about that strange, ambiguous ending. Amy Harmon: It's a strange ambiguous ending. I actually think the movie is a great movie. I think the movie captures the sparkle and the wit and the personality of Butch Cassidy. I really think it was well captured. And I think the ending was perfectly ambiguous because we really don't know. It was believed that for a long time that he was that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid were killed in Bolivia, in a shootout. There are have been so many people that have (investigated,) that are still Butch Cassidy hunters, still are obsessed with him. They and have gone on these long, treasure hunting, treasure seeking journeys. Family insists Butch came home But his family, his youngest sister, insists that he came back to the little valley in Utah that's just over the hill from the valley I grew up in. She insists he came back, which is pretty hard evidence. And it is believed that he is buried on the family's property. They all went to their graves keeping that secret. If he is buried there, no one knows where. And it makes sense that they wouldn't want anyone to know because there would be no way that he would be left to rest in peace. So that is the belief that his family, members of his family had. And that is kind of testified to, but as far as hard evidence, bones or remains or anything like that,