By Sorrow's River : The Berrybender Narratives, Book 3 (Mcmurtry, Larry)

Rating:
Summary: Historical Inaccuracy
Review: Larry McMurtrey books are not great literature (well, maybe with the exception of LONESOME DOVE) but they are a lot of fun to read. I especially enjoy listening to these on books on tape or CD. The Berrybender series is no exception. Many Westerns are written for a male audience but Larry McMurtrey has in Tasmin Berrybender a strong female character with many quirks, supplemented by her sisters and stepmother. However, this last book had me yelling at cassette tape player in my car at the end. Couldn't Larry McMurtrey look in his giant bookstore for a biography of "Pomp" Jean Baptiste Charbonneau to learn that Pomp lives until 1866, participates in the California Gold Rush and escorts Mormons across the Rockies? Glaring inaccuracies like this will aggravate readers who like historical fiction but cannot abide this much stretching of the truth. But now I'll wait for the fourth volume in the series, perhaps Pomp isn't really dead and will do an "X Files" reappearance.

Rating:
Summary: Dude! This ain't Lonesome Dove?!!?
Review: O. K., I'm a sucker for Larry M. and I enjoy MOST of what he creates. We must remember that ; 1) Everything L.M. does is eventually (and unfairly) compared to his masterwork, "L.D." Well, this Berrybender series is NOT L.D., nor is it supposed to be. Yeah, it takes place in the wild west. Yeah, it's got about a million characters. Yeah, yeah yeah! We like that! But why? Well, that takes us to ; 2) L.M. has a way of creating characters and situations that are absolutely ridiculous, horribly brutal, toe tinglingly entertaining and in the final tally, endearing and compelling to the extreme. The B-bender books follow in this thread. The books are demanding because almost everbody in them would, in "real life", be insufferable (yet we keep wanting to know more about them). Also, in the classic L.M. style we are used to, characters are painstakingly developed over hundreds of pages... just to die in nightmarish ways under savage circumstances! Hey, the B-bender books are, if nothing else, entertaining. If they want to make a mini-series, they better put it on HBO 'cause the sex just won't quit!

Rating:
Summary: Narratives Draw Reader In
Review: The Berrybender Narratives is a story of English people traveling in the "wild west." Sometimes the whole story seems a bit implausible, but somehow it draws the reader along, wanting to know more about what happens to the characters. It is easy reading, good summer reading, not too deep, but an interesting story. I never intended to read all 3 books, but in the end I did. I assume Larry McMurtry is working on the 4th.