title: Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw
author:  Mark Svenvold 
description: Carnival sideshows, train robbers and mummies all have an inevitable draw. But in this thoughtful account of one iconic American outlaw, journalist and poet Svenvold uses these topics to examine a deeper issue: the origin of American entertainment obsessions. With a languorous storyteller's flair, Svenvold thoroughly teases out the story of Elmer McCurdy, a "screw-up and ne'er-do-well bandit bungler who had accidentally achieved fame long after death." McCurdy's "pathetic, nine-month crime spree" of attempted train robberies-long after the end of the great era of train robbers-opens this well-drawn story, which focuses more on McCurdy's afterlife, when his mummified body was passed from traveling circus to wax museum to its final resting place, a graveyard in Oklahoma, where the body of the outlaw, who had become larger than life, was ultimately transformed into a "site, a locus, a mirror of the fantasy life of an American public." The account becomes a meditation on fame and death and our nostalgia for the romantic myth of the American West. Svenvold pays homage to and expands on his predecessors' work-Richard Basgall's The Career of Elmer McCurdy, Deceased and a BBC documentary-offering rich treatments on everything from circus life to care of cadavers. While he may not be the first to offer the facts of this wonderfully bizarre story, Svenvold's evocative treatment will lure in anyone looking for a well-spun tale.<br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  ![](../Images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../Images/00004.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../Images/00005.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **FOR LINDA**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # AUTHOR’S NOTE
  
  In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to
  Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months
  later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters.
  
  
  Shortly after the discovery of the corpse, I was asked by the editor of
  _Outside_ magazine to report on the puzzling circumstances of the boy’s death.
  His name turned out to be Christopher Johnson McCandless. He’d grown up, I
  learned, in an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., where he’d excelled
  academically and had been an elite athlete.
  
  
  Immediately after graduating, with honors, from Emory University in the summer
  of 1990, McCandless dropped out of sight. He changed his name, gave the entire
  balance of a twenty-four-thousand-dollar savings account to charit