BONNIE AND CLYDE: A Love Story

True crime meets true love in this lyrical retelling of the Bonnie and Clyde legend. Pretty Bonnie Parker is slinging hash in a Texas cafe, waiting for her husband to finish his prison term, when bad boy Clyde Barrow drives into town. Soon enough, it's a life of crime for both of them. Anyone who's seen Arthur Penn's classic movie knows the story, and Brooks does little myth-busting here. Bonnie and Clyde spend two years ripping up the Southwest, hitting gas stations, mom-and-pop grocery stores and a few banks, and killing lawmen and bystanders along the way. Bonnie, who wasn't just a gangster's girlfriend but a for-real, pistol-packing mamma, was particularly newsworthy to an entertainment-starved audience, and the dangerous duo's celebrity status plays a big role in their tale. Brooks (Pistolero ; The Stone Garden ; etc.) goes for broke with his smooth prose ("Bonnie watches the window of the V-8 weep raindrops while betrayal buzzes in her brain like a fat bee seeking to sting the flowers of her heart"). A whiff of tragedy hangs over these pages, just as it did over the lives, and deaths, of the lovers. Bonnie writes poetry and Clyde dreams of the next big score as they drive along dusty back roads, first avoiding, then finally confronting the end everyone knows must inevitably arrive. (Jan.)