Rating: 
Summary: Glory and Folly
Review: The final piece of the Berrybender Narratives, starts out strong, picking up where the the last three left off. McMurtry does his usual job of excellent story telling in the first half of the book, and mixes in the bizarre, quite consistent with this series.It then seems as he decides he doesn't have the energy to keep going, and he fast forwards to the end. New characters are introduced, but never inspected; hundreds of miles are covered in a page or 2; and the book wraps up very quickly. In my opinion this was the weakest of the series and a disappointment. Not as many laughs, and a race to the finish.
Rating:
Summary: Glory and Folly
Review: When I began the Berrybender Narratives, I was expecting a happy, humorous lark though the American West of the 1830's. And, throughout Sin Killer, that is exactly what I got. However, as the series progressed, each book became a little darker, a little more serious, until finally, I read Folly and Glory, put it down, and realized that somewhere along the line this series became a true Larry McMurtry depresser. Not that it's a bad thing! Any McMurtry fan knows that there is going to be at least SOME death and violence in the novels. But wow! Was I depressed after I finished Folly and Glory! But, strangely, I was depressed in a good way, because I truly cared about these characters and their fates. Larry McMurtry has this great talent in which he can just write one paragraph, or one page, and in this paragraph or page, everything is pulled together so well that I end up reading it again and again. (See Captain Clark's reaction to Pomp's death--or even Ben Sippy's reaction to the aftermath of the battle of Skunkwater Flats in Anything for Billy, if you want to know what I mean.)
This book is a wonderful ending to a wonderful series. I am only sad that I cannot find out what happens in the rest of Tasmin's life, or Jim's, for that matter, even though I didn't like him much in this book.
This series was amazing! Read it!
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