The Lives Of The Savages

Throughout most of their short, violent, disorganised and unrewarding spree as Depression-era bank robbers, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were accompanied by W. D. Jones - drifter, driver, opportunist, psychopath, fantasist and teenager. Towards the end of their time together, having endured Clyde's mockery and abuse, and despite his obvious affection for Bonnie, Jones abandoned the duo and was swiftly tracked down and arrested. Awaiting trial, and keen to save his own young neck, Jones was visited by Captain Frank Hamer, ex-Texas Ranger and the lawman tasked with bringing Parker and Barrow's trail of bloody and increasingly reckless and seamless violence to an end. Hamer and Jones met on several occasions and, manipulative and contradictory as ever, Jones became instrumental in Hamer's eventual plan to destroy the two killers. Promising an eager, clamouring press that he was keeping a full and detailed record of everything that passed between himself and Jones, Frank Hamer's memoirs make only a single reference to his captive's lengthy confession and reveal nothing whatsoever of Jones's own endlessly-shifting, self-serving and desperate revelations.


Genre: Mystery