Billy's Blues

Combining fact, folklore and a shopworn twist of revisionist history, Meltzer's eccentric debut joins the legion of books about the legendary gunslinger Billy the Kid. Although Billy's tale may be a rerun, the storyteller's is a hoot. The narrator is Walter, a reclusive 1990s New York City apartment dweller. An unemployed, obese shut-in burdened by countless phobias, Walter is afraid of people, germs, daylight and healthy food. As he snarfs down Hershey Bar marshmallow fluffer-honey-nutter sandwiches topped with Redi-Whip, Walter becomes obsessed with the Old West's most notorious, pint-sized killer. He desperately wants to purge Billy of his brutal myth, to prove the Kid was really just misunderstood, not withstanding the 21 notches on his pistols. But even as Walter escapes in dreams to the Lincoln County War of 1878, the urban travails of his waking hours are closing in on him. Annotated and liberally sprinkled with quotations from penny-dreadfuls, the Bible and old movies like Billy the Kid vs. Frankenstein, this odd, bittersweet novel features troubles more complex than those The Kid ever had to face. (Mar.)