What if Billy the Kid not only didn't die, but was saved by a woman?

History tells us that the short and violent life of William Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, ended at the hand of Pat Garrett on the moonless night of July 14, 1881. But I Am Billy the Kid tells a different story, straight from Billy himself. This revisionist history seen through the lens of a twenty-first century sensibility features the picaresque hero we thought we knew and the unexpected one that we don't; a fearless and determined young woman who is in no mood to be saved and would much prefer exacting her own revenge. Billy has been in an alcoholic haze since a failed attempt to escape notoriety by faking his own death. By 1915, his fame has only increased, and when word of a possible ruse leaks out, Billy finds himself once again on the run. He agrees to follow his elder brother Joseph north from New Mexico Territory, to possible sanctuary in Canada. Billy and Joseph encounter Turner Wing, a young woman with a fierce sense of self-determination and the skills with a gun to back it up, and her father, a man with a past and a burlap sack over his head due to a significant facial disfiguration. They are in desperate search of Turner's sister, who has been abducted by a pair of marauding thieves. Billy and Joseph know the truth about the girl's fate and, following their own code of honour, form an uneasy alliance with the Wings to avenge her death.

Michael Blouin is a ReLit Award winning author for Best Novel in Canada, has been shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award, the bpNichol Award and the CBC Literary Award and is a winner of the Diana Brebner Award and the 2012 Lampman Award. He has been published in most Canadian literary magazines including Arc, Descant, Branch, Dragnet, The Antigonish Review, Event, Queens Quarterly and Fiddlehead, and has served as an adjudicator for The Ontario Arts Council, the Ottawa Book Awards, Carleton University, and This Magazine.

Michael Blouin's profile page