The Happy Bottom Riding Club

The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes

By: Lauren Kessler

Narrated by: Hollis McCarthy

Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Pancho Barnes was a force of nature, a woman who lived a big, messy, colorful, unconventional life. She ran through three fortunes, four husbands, and countless lovers. She outflew Amelia Earhart, outsmarted Howard Hughes, outdrank the Mexican Army, and outmaneuvered the US government. In The Happy Bottom Riding Club, award-winning author Lauren Kessler tells the story of a high-spirited, headstrong woman who was proud of her successes, unabashed by her failures, and the architect of her own legend.

Florence "Pancho" Barnes was a California heiress who inherited a love of flying from her grandfather, a pioneer balloonist in the Civil War. Faced with a future of domesticity and upper-crust pretensions, she ran away from her responsibilities as wife and mother to create her own life. She cruised South America. She trekked through Mexico astride a burro. She hitchhiked halfway across the United States. Then, in the late 1920s, she took to the skies, one of a handful of female pilots.

She was a barnstormer, a racer, a cross-country flier, and a Hollywood stunt pilot. She was, for a time, "the fastest woman on earth", flying the fastest civilian airplane in the world. She was an intimate of movie stars, a script doctor for the great director Erich von Stroheim, and, later in life, a drinking buddy of the supersonic jet jockey Chuck Yeager. She ran a wild and wildly successful desert watering hole known as the Happy Bottom Riding Club, the raucous bar and grill depicted in The Right Stuff.

In The Happy Bottom Riding Club, Lauren Kessler presents a portrait, both authoritative and affectionate, of a woman who didn't play by women's rules, a woman of large appetites - emotional, financial, and sexual - who called herself "the greatest conversation piece that ever existed".

©2010 Lauren Kessler (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"The hard-drinking, sexually promiscuous pilot and adventuress Florence 'Pancho' Barnes exploded every feminine stereotype on the books. Thank you, Lauren Kessler, for telling her story with the grace and exuberance it deserves." (Barbara Ehrenreich)

"Pancho Barnes is an unsung American eccentric who helped keep the 'wild' in Wild West. With tremendous zest, insight, and intelligence, Lauren Kessler has given us a compelling tale of a great woman who wasn't afraid to make life synonymous with risk." (Karen Karbo, author of Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me)

Wonderful story

Audio has many pauses and repeats. But the story make it all worth it . Poncho Barns was a true avatrexs

Excellent book.

The book was very well written and kept your interest all the way through. The narrator did a great job reading the book. Pancho Barnes was a very interesting person and this book was very fun to listen to.

Pancho is one of those “who would you dream of having over for dinner” types. This book explains why.

She loved such an amazing life. This book gives details tha you don’t get from the documentary or anywhere else. It’s such a fun read particularly as a native Southern Californian. The author nailed it, too. Thanks for the wonderful book.

Adventures of a narcissist

Fawning biography of a selfish, entitled narcissist. Glad I used a credit so I can get it back.