Selectively Lawless: The True Story of Emmett Long, an American Original

Born to a Texas sharecropping family in 1904, Emmett Long soon fell in love with fast engines and fast living. An associate of legendary outlaws like Pretty Boy Floyd and Frank Nash, Emmett rose from poverty to infamy as a prodigious gambler, moonshiner, bank robber, and—on occasion—a killer of men. But he was not your average outlaw.

From an early age, Emmett made his own rules—and he stuck to them, too. Instead of dying young in a blaze of guns and fury, he found Christianity, married a good woman, raised a family, and lived to a ripe age as a successful rancher. In a new twist to the classic Great Depression outlaw narrative, Asa Dunnington shares the life story of his uncle in Selectively Lawless.