The many lamely constructed similes of Dainty Monsters and the often lurid lyric excesses of The Man With Seven Toes are a far cry from the more carefully crafted, casually understated material of [The Collected Works of Billy the Kid]. Negotiating this book, I sensed a sure-footedness, a control which I have never felt in Ondaatje's earlier books. Indeed, if he hadn't used the historic framework of the adventures of Mrs. Fraser (The Man With Seven Toes) in a manner somewhat prophetic of his similar technique in The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, I would have found little area for comparison whatsoever.

The rather unusual choice of an old Wild-West saga—the story of Billy the Kid—as a literary vehicle struck me at first as dubious, but strikes me now as quite an intelligent choice to have made. For one thing, though much has been written...