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Larry McMurtry is best known for his western novels. His reputation for such would be carved indelibly in stone simply on the strength of LONESOME DOVE. While he is equally masterful in his crafting of straight genre fiction (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, to name but two), it is the western, the oater, the horse opera, with which he is most immediately associated. His joinder with that genre is further cemented, as if it really needed to be, with what has become known as The Berrybender Narratives; THE WANDERING HILL is the second book of the projected quadrilogy. The book and the series are both a reminiscence of, and a tribute to, the dime novels and pulp serials that were once the staple media of American fiction.
It should be stated at the outset that enjoyment of THE WANDERING HILL will be increased immeasurably by first reading its predecessor, SIN KILLER. SIN KILLER serves as an introduction to the Berrybender family, a wealthy English clan who is on a combined expedition and extended holiday on the Western frontier. Though there is a cast of dozens here, thoughtfully listed in the front of SIN KILLER and THE WANDERING HILL, the focus of both books is Tasmin Berrybender, eldest of the Berrybender children, who is wedded to and pregnant by Jim Snow, a.k.a. Sin Killer, a rugged frontiersman whose veneer of civilization is quite thin, indeed. Snow and Tasmin are polar opposites --- she is spoiled and rich, he is orphaned and living off the land. THE WANDERING HILL finds both of them moving, frequently kicking and screaming, toward a common center with their newborn child --- truly a child of the new world --- serving as a catalyst.
They are surrounded by an ever-changing assortment of characters who are added and subtracted by whim of fate. Not the least of whom is Lord Berrybender, the impetus behind this wild trip to the United States and whose behavior is such that he heedlessly puts himself, and all around him, at great peril. Berrybender's grip upon his sanity, never too sure to begin with, seems especially variable and tenuous by the end of THE WANDERING HILL, with predictably unpredictable results.
The setting of THE WANDERING HILL --- the American frontier --- provides its own built-in suspense mechanism. Death or dismemberment could come at any moment, whether by the instrument of weather, animals, or human beings. All get their turn in THE WANDERING HILL. And the instrument from which the title of this volume takes its name, a portend (by Indian legend) of destruction and misfortune, could be real. Or not. An argument could be made for either.
McMurtry reports the proceedings with an unflinching eye; one never knows when a twist of fate or an ill-advised move will suddenly remove a character from this side of the literary veil. His descriptions range from the wryly humorous to the horrific, sometimes within a single paragraph. If there is any downside herein, it is that McMurtry's readership will have to wait yet another year to discover what will next befall the Berrybender clan and those who they might encounter along the way.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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