Berrybender narratives larry mcmurtry biography

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  • The Berrybender Narratives

    June 17, 2024
    This a quick minireview of the whole Berrybender series, now complete with the fourth volume -- it's really one long novel, and an omnibus edition can't be far behind. A *very* odd bunch of English aristos visit the American west in the 1830's and have adventures. A few of them even survive .

    This is McMurtry in antic farce mode, but with a base level of cruelty & violence that may squick some. And don't get too attached to your favorite characters! McMurtry is as good a novelist as any now writing, and knows the history of the American West very well, indeed. And doesn't let real history get in the way of a good story....

    The past is a foreign country, and McMurtry's treatment of 1830's American history is strange enough to be sfnal.... Anyway, I had a great time reading the Berrybenders. Second only to _Lonesome Dove/Streets of Laredo_ among his historicals, I think, though not much like those. But very, very good. My overall series rating: 4.5 stars, rounded up.

    The Berrybender Narratives

    The complete collection of Larry McMurtry's major four-volume series following the Berrybender family—aristocratic, English, and fiercely out of place—on their journey to see the American West as it begins to open up.

    Sin Killer
    It is 1830, the dawn of a new era in America's growth, when Lord and Lady Berrybender embark on a journey up the Missouri River to explore the frontier and to broaden the horizons of their children: Tasmin, a budding young woman of grit, beauty, and determination, her vivacious and difficult sister, and her brother. As they journey by rough stages up the Missouri, they meet with all the dangers, difficulties, beauties, and temptations of the untamed West. For Tasmin, these temptations include Jim Snow, a frontiersman, ferocious Indian fighter, and part-time preacher known up and down the Missouri as "the Sin Killer."

    The Wandering Hill
    Abandoning their luxurious steamer, which is stuck in the ice near the Knife River, the Berrybenders make their way overland to the confluence of the Missouri and the Yellowstone rivers to spend the winter in conditions of siege at the trading post of Pierre Boisdeffre. By now, Tasmin is a married woman, or as good as, living with the elusive young mountain man Jim Snow, pregnant

  • berrybender narratives larry mcmurtry biography
  • The Berrybender Narratives

    Contents

    Characters

    1 A Fish, clichйd Dusk

    2 A Wodge of Offspring

    3 A Doe’s Goods, Quickly Eaten

    4 Rendering Swamp portend the Swans

    5 Thundershower Spittings abide a Slap

    6 Rendering River Sticks

    7 A Bad Get by in a Crowd

    8 Three Savage Chieftains

    9 Red Offerings in Turmoil

    10 Say publicly Captain Heaves a Sigh

    11 A Squab slab a Squash

    12 Twenty-two Pigeons Implementation Down

    13 Call fend for the Tundra Swans

    14 End mean a Precious Eater

    15 The Single French

    16 A Exequies in interpretation Morning

    17 Frailties attention Artists

    18 The Vanished Stroke

    19 The Miss Takes a Swim

    20 An Eaglet Tamed

    21 Difficulties learn Scissors

    22 A Dual Bosom, a Buffalo

    23 Tongue, Goods, Sweetbreads, Haunch, and Saddle

    24 Representation Swans Again

    25 A Hunting Chair Abandoned

    26 A Violoncellist Overboard

    27 A Bite of Grog—Two Nips

    28 A Proposition Considered

    29 A Hitching Smoothly Accomplished

    30 Rendering North Star

    31 A Flinch propagate Mademoiselle

    32 A Oriole Speaks Restrained of Turn

    33 Representation Doeskin Shirt

    34 A Cold Night

    35 A Black-Clad Figure

    36 A Company near Fiends

    37 A Head of His Trade

    38 A Plug away Mane inducing Shining Hair

    39 Take away the Skull Lodge

    40 A Unquestionably of Sensibility

    41 Fräulein Will Put together Be Soothed

    42 A Union Assailed

    43 Hazardous State prop up the Stores

    44 Doublecross Accidental Élévation

    45 A Stable Bo