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The settling of the United States by European interests has within the past 100 years swung radically between glorification and vilification in the telling. Larry McMurty's Berrybender Narratives, now in its third volume with the publication of BY SORROW'S RIVER, takes a middle, and more realistic, course. One comes away from the pages of each volume wondering how the genetic strain of the pioneers endured. Mutilation, and likely death, came suddenly and without warning from multiple sources, whether by animal, nature or fellow human beings.
BY SORROW'S RIVER follows the narrative thread of its two predecessors, SIN KILLER and THE WANDERING HILL, in that it follows what is left of the Berrybender family on their ill-fated trek through the unsettled Western frontier. Lord Berrybender, the besotted, irredeemable family patriarch, is the catalyst for this journey. He is determined to hunt more and more buffalo, even as his family members and his bodily appendages are whittled away by accident and hostile design. It is Tasmin Berrybender, the Lord's irrepressible daughter, who remains the focus of the narrative. Married to Jim Snow, the Sin Killer in the first novel, and yet almost desperately in love with the (almost) non-responsive Pomp Charbonneau, Tasmin is a fish out of water in the American West but seems to be the only crew member capable of dealing with her surroundings.
BY SORROW'S RIVER chronicles the Berrybender trek across the Great Plains toward Santa Fe. It is by far the most interesting and fastest-moving of the Berrybender volumes to date. This is not to slight its predecessors; it is simply an acknowledgment that McMurtry, having ensconced the nucleus of his characters in place, can now introduce new characters and situations at will. And what a motley, entertaining group he introduces! There are a pair of journalists --- one British, one French --- who are set on crossing the Plains via a hot air balloon. Their appearance is at once uproarious and poignant, for Le Partezon, a legendary and feared Sioux war chief, sees the end of his people foretold in the presence of this rudimentary but still revolutionary air travel. There is The Ear Taker, an Indian whose specialty is creeping up on his victims while they sleep and slicing a trophy ear off with a razor-sharp knife. He cannot be caught because he has never been seen. There are hardships to be endured, and death is an ever-present companion.
McMurtry keeps his narrative lively and unpredictable. One never knows when a dialogue between characters will be interrupted by sudden and irrevocable violence --- which, by the way, is a mainstay of the book. McMurtry does not shrink from graphic descriptions; if you've been tempted to switch to a vegan diet, but you've never had the impetus to make the jump, some of the descriptions of cattle slaughtering in this book may be enough to help you break your meat-eating habits. BY SORROW'S RIVER is not for the faint of heart or, for that matter, the weak of gag reflex.
You can heighten your enjoyment of BY SORROW'S RIVER by reading SIN KILLER and THE WANDERING HILL first, if only to gain a feel and familiarity for each of the characters and their situations. Don't get too attached to anyone, however. McMurtry won't hesitate to kill off a sympathetic character, though he does not do so gratuitously. Practically every word of BY SORROW'S RIVER serves to advance the plot along in some way. The only downside to this fine saga is that a year will be too long to wait for the final volume.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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