FIGHTING FOR AIR DOC HOLLIDAY MOVIE
FIGHTING FOR AIR DOC HOLLIDAY PROFESSIONAL

John Henry HollidayвЂ™s knowledge and sensibilities bridge those worlds for us. Electric lights and the phonograph and the telephone were developed about the time that Doc Holliday met Wyatt Earp in Dodge City. That was the era of Western boomtowns and cattle drives and pioneers, but also of Tolstoy and Dickens and Flaubert, of the ballet ВЂВњCoppelia ВЂВќ and the opera ВЂВњCarmen. With John Henry Holliday as the focus of the novel, I was able to write in a very different way about the frontier.

So if weвЂ™d been dropped into Dodge City in 1878, our frame of reference would be more like Doc HollidayвЂ™s than Wyatt EarpвЂ™s.

FIGHTING FOR AIR DOC HOLLIDAY MOVIE

Now, few of us have read Homer or Virgil in the original languages, but at least weвЂ™ve seen the movie ВЂВњTroy ВЂВќ on television! We may not be able to play Chopin or Beethoven, but most of us know who they were. At the Philadelphia College of Dental Surgery, his coursework included metallurgy, chemistry, physiology, gross anatomy, dental histology, oral pathology, in addition to surgical practicum. The real John Henry Holliday had studied the Greek and Latin classics as well as rhetoric, history and mathematics. In the movies, the ВЂВњlegendary gambler and gunman Doc Holliday ВЂВќ usually arrives in town with a bad reputation and a hooker named Big Nose Kate. Talk about crossing borders and never truly really fitting in! So he went West in 1873, at the age of 22, hoping that the dry air and sunshine of the Great American Desert would restore his health.

FIGHTING FOR AIR DOC HOLLIDAY PROFESSIONAL

He was a skilled and serious professional who expected to live a quiet life in the East but just as he was beginning to establish his adult life, he was diagnosed with advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. Instead he went to the best dental school in the North, earning the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery when he was still only 20 years old.

The Hollidays were Georgia gentry, and John Henry was meant to be a minor aristocrat in a South that ceased to exist after the Civil War. Alice Holliday was also an accomplished pianist who began her sonвЂ™s lessons as soon as he could reach the keyboard. When the toddler began to talk, it was obvious that he would have a significant speech impediment, so his mother developed a form of speech therapy to improve his diction. John Stiles Holliday, performed a successful surgical repair of that birth defect, although the achievement was kept private to protect the familyвЂ™s reputation for ВЂВњgood breeding ВЂВќ-a term taken literally until quite recently. He was born in Griffin, Georgia, in 1851 with a cleft palate and a cleft lip.

John Henry Holliday certainly fits that pattern, but itвЂ™s important to realize that he was a real person-not just a fictional character-and heвЂ™d beaten some formidable odds simply by surviving infancy. The characters in my novels are often migrants or foreigners, half-castes or marginal natives who don ВЂВ™t quite fit the place theyвЂ™re in and who have developed a somewhat distanced and ironic view of their world. I ВЂВ™m always interested borderlands, and in people who cross boundaries and defy categories. What attracted you to the character of Doc Holliday? Because of her historical knowledge about the Old West, and her familiarity with law enforcement (having grown up the daughter of a sheriff), she was able to provide valuable insight into the issue of gun violence and gun laws in the U.S.

Mary is the author of four previous best-sellers: The Sparrow, Children of God, A Thread of Grace, and Dreamers of the Day. We were fortunate to catch up with Mary Doria Russell to ask her some questions about her new novel and the fascinating life of her lead character. The ВЂВњwinners ВЂВќ of this gun battle against the Clanton-McLaury gang-the Earp brothers and John Henry ВЂВњDoc ВЂВќ Holliday-are still household names today because of popular films like ВЂВњTombstone ВЂВќ (1993) and ВЂВњWyatt Earp ВЂВќ (1994) and two recent books: ВЂВњThe Last Gunfight ВЂВќ by Jeff Guinn and ВЂВњDoc ВЂВќ by Mary Doria Russell. One of the great legends of the American Old West surrounds the 1881 shootout at the O.K.

Fighting for air doc holliday