" Not merely because they happened in the dust and heat of the United States south and southwest, but because these crimes were viewed by much of the American public as a reaction to the Great Depression. “Gaunt, dazed men roamed the city streets seeking jobs,” writes historian E. R. Milner in The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde. “Breadlines and soup kitchens became jammed, foreclosures forced more than 38 percent of farmers from their lands . . . by the time Bonnie and Clyde became well-known, many felt that the capitalistic system had been abused by big business and government officials. Now here were Bonnie and Clyde striking back.” They were products of their times, and they defined how generations of Americans would view and interpret lovers who broke the law. And when they died, they died together in a rain of bullets, faithful to each other until their end. "

― Monica Hesse , American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land