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A Netflix series revisits the story of Wyatt Earp. This author asks if we need to keep re-telling it

Actors perform at the O.K. Corral in 2016, the scene of the famous 1881 gunfight that sealed Tombstone's place in Wild West lore.
Matthew Casey/KJZZ
Actors perform at the O.K. Corral in 2016, the scene of the famous 1881 gunfight that sealed Tombstone's place in Wild West lore.

Welcome to Thanksgiving Week. It’s a week of big decisions: what to eat, when to eat it, how many pies is too many pies. For some of us, the answers to those questions are, in order: everything, constantly, and there’s no such thing. Which, of course, means that once the big meal is over, it’s hard to imagine doing much beyond putting on your soft pants and watching TV. And as you swipe through your various streaming services, one of the options you may find yourself considering is the recent Netflix series "Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War," a documentary narrated by Ed Harris.

"Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War" explores a legendary gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona. In October of 1881, three brothers — Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt Earp — opened fire on a band of outlaws, killing three of them in the middle of the street in broad daylight. The whole thing lasted less than a minute, but in the 143 years since it happened, the shootout has inspired dozens of books, films and TV shows. And the constant telling and re-telling of the story has transformed this brief, bloody brawl into one of the archetypal scenes of the Old West — so much so that Tombstone, a city of less than 2,000 residents, gets about half a million tourists every year.

Justin St. Germain grew up in Tombstone. He later wrote a book about the tiny town’s enormous impact on his life. And earlier this year, when he sat down to watch "Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War," he thought, “Really? We’re doing this again?”

Justin St. Germain
Justin St. Germain
Justin St. Germain

Full conversation

JUSTIN ST. GERMAIN: It just seems like this kind of law of eternal return where it's like every 20 years or I, I was living in Tombstone in the '90s when both the movie "Tombstone" and the movie "Wyatt Earp" came out within, I think a year of each other.

And so in some ways that seemed to be like the last big moment Tombstone had and then obviously, you know, in the '50s or in the '30s with all the, the original Pulpy Western movies, it was prominent then too.

So it just seems like every now and then we have to go back to the story of Wyatt Earp.

DINGMAN: Yeah. So why do you think this story prompts this eternal return? Like what are the things in the American consciousness that it, that it kicks up that, that we have a hard time with? 

ST. GERMAIN: In the context of this show, it seems like there's a real desire to see a very simplistic version of history where everything gets solved by one tough guy with a gun. You know.

DINGMAN: Can you talk a little bit about how you perceived this story as a kid? You know, you, I'm imagining there were waves of tourists that would, would come into Tombstone and, you know, this was just the place where you lived. What was that like?

ST. GERMAIN: To be totally honest with you, I think for me and for my friends, the people who grew up there, we kind of thought it was a joke. We just didn't take it very seriously, didn't know much about it. Growing up, one of my best friends lived, he lived right across the street from the O.K. Corral.

And so we'd sit in his, in his bedroom, you know, playing video games, whatever and in the O.K. Corral, there's a, at least there used to be, I think it's still there. There's, you know, statues where the gunfighters were and then there's kind of a button where you just press the button and it narrates out loud the story of the gunfight.

And so we would just hear the story of the gunfight over and over and over again. And I think that's kind of the best metaphor I have for what it was like to grow up in Tombstone. It's like it's just always happening. The gunfight is always happening in the background.

DINGMAN: What about when the movie "Tombstone" and the "Wyatt Earp" movie came out, you know, those are obviously other, well known versions of this story. Did you have any relationship with those, beyond just this idea of, of the story is kind of a joke? 

ST. GERMAIN: Yeah, that was when, "Tombstone" especially, I, I still love that movie. I watch that movie all the time and I, I kind of have become slightly obsessed with Val Kilmer because of that movie. I saw Val Kilmer in Tombstone recently when he came back for a, well, a few years ago he came back for Val Kilmer days. And yeah.

DINGMAN: So what was it that you connected with about, about Val Kilmer?

ST. GERMAIN: I just thought he was so good as Doc Holliday and I think he was so good in that movie that it kind of made me care about the story. One of the, you know, one of the strange things about, like I said, it's, it's always in the background, I didn't care about, didn't, didn't really know much of the Wyatt Earp story until that movie came out.

I think there's just something about seeing your town on the big screen and even if it's not your town, you know, a Hollywood version of your town and just having this sense like, oh, maybe Tombstone was important.

DINGMAN: Well, if we can talk about your memoir, you also have a very tragic association with it as a place, right?

ST. GERMAIN: I do yeah. So, you know, my, my book is about my mother's murder, which happened outside of Tombstone but was very heavily tied up in Tombstone. We have been living in Tombstone, she had been living in Tombstone for, I think 13 years at the time.

Her murderer was a police officer in Tombstone. And as you might imagine, police officers in Tombstone then, and I'm guessing now, had a way of kind of modeling themselves, you know, in the mold of the Wyatt Earp, you know, mustaches and walked around like they were, you know, kings of the town.

And so I was trying to take a look at like, how does growing up in a town whose hero is celebrated for winning a gunfight? How does that kind of like filter into everybody's psychology and, and you know, how does like worshiping and basically worshiping an act of violence, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. What does that do to a town?

DINGMAN: Well, it makes me think of one of the most harrowing sequences in your book. Your mom was murdered, if I'm not mistaken, eight days after the attacks on September 11. Correct?

ST. GERMAIN: Yeah.

DINGMAN: And you go to a bar and you're sitting there processing the loss of your mom and, and you look up on the screen and, and there's George W Bush. Can you tell me a little bit about what George W. Bush was saying in that moment? 

ST. GERMAIN: As I recall, he was, he was essentially talking about Osama bin Laden, you know, in a lot of ways, it, it kind of maps pretty similarly to, to this myth of the O.K. Corral that it was about we were gonna get righteous justice, vengeance was coming.

DINGMAN: Yeah, I was so moved by that passage because to me it, it's such an interesting illustration of, you know, here you've just had this horrific illustration in your life of the dangers of believing too much in this mythology of, you know, the guy with the gun who can solve all the problems. And there on national television is the president of the United States invoking the, the value of that really, misguided idea.

ST. GERMAIN: Yeah , absolutely. And I've met with a lot of other people who have been through similar experiences to mine. You know, one of the, one of the tough things about writing about murder is that it's, it's actually not as novel as people think it is. And especially in America, there's a lot of people who have had similar experiences and frankly, maybe worse experiences in many ways.

But one of the things you kind of realize is that in real life, vengeance for that kind of thing. If, if your loved one gets murdered, it, it doesn't really exist and, and if it does, it doesn't do anybody any good.

DINGMAN: But that idea that vengeance is gonna, is gonna solve something and right, all the wrongs. That, that seems to be a big part of what really sticks to the ribs about this, this Wyatt Earp story.

ST. GERMAIN: It absolutely does. I think, you know, one of the most compelling parts of the story all the time is, is in, in any format it's told in is the vendetta ride right where he's getting, he's just going around murdering people as revenge for Virgil getting shot. And his other brother Morgan getting killed.

DINGMAN: Could you say from your own perspective, what was healing for you?

ST. GERMAIN: I think in some ways I'm a little bit conflicted and even maybe a little bit suspicious about the idea of healing all the way or of closure. I think there's a lot of pressure put on people who have, survived violence and in whatever way to achieve closure and I think that can be kind of counterproductive. But for me, I also do think that there are things that help, you know.

And I think one of the things that helped, oddly enough was kind of writing the book.

You know, I think writing obviously, I think you want to accomplish more than just therapy. I I wasn't just doing it for me. I was doing it for a reader, but I did find out that once I was done with it,, I could kind of put that part of my life in a more appropriate place in the past and, like, still acknowledge it as a part of history but not obsess about it quite as much as I had been until then.

DINGMAN: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there, this is such a spiritual idea that we're suddenly talking about here. This idea that maybe what's important about these stories is not that there is some definitive version of them that is ultimately going to get it right. But that by telling it and retelling it and finding different ways into it, we understand a little bit more of it every time.

ST. GERMAIN: Yeah, I think that might be true. And I sort of wish that the Wyatt Earp story could kind of come be retold in a way more often where it's, it's illustrating really the idea that, I mean, I think the gunfight at the O.K. Corral was not some great achievement.

It was a great tragedy. You know, it's a lot of people dying for no real reason. And I don't know that we need to celebrate that quite as much as it seems like maybe we do.

DINGMAN: Well, Justin St. Germain is the author of "Son of a Gun," his memoir about the murder of his mother. Justin, Thank you for this conversation.

ST. GERMAIN: Thanks a lot, Sam great talking to you.

Sam Dingman is a reporter and host for KJZZ’s The Show. Prior to KJZZ, Dingman was the creator and host of the acclaimed podcast Family Ghosts.
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