REVIEWS: 'The Kid,' by Ron Hansen, and 'Do Not Say We Have Nothing,' by Madeleine Thien

By Ron Hansen. (Scribner, 301 pages, $26.)

The gauzy image of Billy the Kid in the American mind is that of a young gunslinger who briefly terrorized the Southwest before he was gunned down. In the hands of Ron Hansen, one of our finest historical fiction writers and author of a novel on another legendary Western outlaw, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," the Kid is far more complicated and human than that. A clever and somewhat lettered teenager with charm to spare, the Kid — known variously as Henry, Kid Antrim and Bonney, as well as Billy — loses his devoted Irish mother at age 14, falls in with the wrong crowd and begins stealing horses. He lands honest work with an English merchant/rancher, only to find himself in the middle of a local business feud that erupts into the bloody Lincoln County War.

In exchange for amnesty, he agrees to give information to the governor on a murder he witnessed and then finds himself lingering in jail until, exasperated, he finally busts out. The Kid is blessed with a remarkably quick and deadly aim, and his reputation grows more fearsome with the number of men he kills. Asked what he really wants from life, he responds: "To belong. To be liked. To be famous. To be feared." Hansen's Billy is a shiftless if well-meaning lad who constantly finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, up to the very end of his short life. The book's strengths include a glossary of its many characters, which helps sort Billy's friends from his foes, and Hansen's own vivid and engaging narrative based on his careful reading of the historical record.

KEVIN DUCHSCHERE

By Madeleine Thien. (W.W. Norton & Co., 480 pages, $26.95.)

Few books I've read are as haunting and powerful as "Do Not Say We Have Nothing," a work of historical fiction that opens in 1991 Canada in the home of Chinese immigrants. With the narrative of a 10-year-old girl as a springboard, author Madeleine Thien tells the story of three generations of a family of musicians ravaged by upheaval in China — specifically, the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square. All of the characters ring true in this intricate tale of the girl's extended family and what they endured in China in this century.

Thien, the daughter of Malaysian-Chinese immigrants, conveys the telling isolation and residual sadness of the refugee. She also conveys how family loyalty feeds the strength of will to survive. Her writing is powerful and poetic. The book was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, which is considered the leading literary award for fiction.

BECKY WELTER