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Folly and Glory: A Novel [Paperback]

Larry McMurtry
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Aug 2 2005 Berrybender Narratives (Book 4)
As this final volume of The Berrybender Narratives opens, Tasmin and her family are under irksome, though comfortable, arrest in Mexican Santa Fe. Her father, the eccentric Lord Berrybender, is planning to head for Texas with his whole family and his retainers. Tasmin, who would once have followed her husband, Jim Snow, anywhere, is no longer even sure she likes him, or knows where to go to next.

In the meantime, Jim Snow, accompanied by Kit Carson, journeys to New Orleans, where he meets up with a muscular black giant named Juppy in whose company they make their way back to Santa Fe. But even they are unable to prevent the Mexicans from carrying the Berrybender family on a long and terrible journey across the desert to Vera Cruz.

Starving, dying of thirst, and in constant, bloody battle with slavers pursuing them, the Berrybenders finally make their way to civilization, where Jim Snow has to choose between Tasmin and the great American plains, on which he has lived all his life in freedom, and where, after all her adventures, Tasmin must finally decide where her future lies.

With a cast of characters that includes almost every major real-life figure of the West, Folly and Glory is a novel that represents the culmination of a great and unique four-volume saga of the early days of the West; it is one of Larry McMurtry's finest achievements.


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From Publishers Weekly

This is the fourth and final volume in McMurtry's Berrybender Narratives (following By Sorrow's River), a frontier epic of lusty and bloody proportions, in which, fortunately, nearly everyone is killed off. Lord Berrybender, an arrogant and lecherous Englishman and his whining brood of daughters, their brats and servants have been arrested by Mexican authorities and are under house arrest in Santa Fe in the mid-1830s. Tensions between Mexicans and Americans run high as the dispute over Texas drifts toward war. When the Berrybender party is expelled from Santa Fe, the group is forced to march across the desert to Vera Cruz, escorted by inept Mexican soldiers. The grueling journey is filled with hardship and death as thirst, cholera and hostile Indians whittle the group by half. Meanwhile, Jim Snow, aka the Sin Killer, a famous mountain man, plans to rescue his white wife, Tasmin Berrybender, and her family somewhere along the desert route. Once the rescue is complete and the surviving Berrybenders are safely in Texas, Jim goes after the gang of slavers who murdered his son and his Indian wife (mountain men seem to have a lot of wives). Here McMurtry really shows why Jim is called the Sin Killer and why white men and Indians fear the mountain man who shrieks "the Word" and shows no mercy when he is riled up. Of the four books in the series, this is the bloodiest and most brutal, with rapes, torture, mutilation and death heaped upon the characters until grief and despair nearly consume them. Add the disaster at the Alamo and a passel of colorful Texas heroes to the enduring figures of mountain men Kit Carson and Tom Fitzpatrick, and this grisly frontier soap opera concludes with a bang.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This is the fourth and concluding volume of the Berrybender Narratives, McMurtry's saga of the four-year odyssey of the Berrybender family as they traverse the various river valleys of the American West in the 1830s. Once again, the heart of the story is the evolving relationship between Tasmin Berrybender and her enigmatic, primitive husband, Jim Snow. Both have changed. Tasmin has learned to cope with the physical demands of a nomadic life and the emotional demands and trauma of motherhood and death. Jim, still capable of savage violence, seems more tender and vulnerable here. As they and their familiar entourage journey eastward from Santa Fe, they encounter various historical personages, including William Clark, Charles Bent, and Davy Crockett. They also endure searing landscapes, cholera, and the constant threat of horrific brutality at the hands of Apaches, Kiowas, Commanches, and slave traders. As always, McMurtry is a gifted storyteller who seamlessly melds multiple plotlines, paints vivid images, and creates memorable literary characters. The ending, while leaving plenty of loose ends, seems satisfying and appropriate. This is a worthy close to an outstanding quartet that has shown McMurtry at his best. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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PETEY, the sensitive twin, aged one year and a half, began to sneeze and couldn't stop, giving Petal her chance: she at once seized a stuffed blue rooster the two had been fighting over and slipped behind her mother, waiting to see what her twin would do when he stopped sneezing and discovered the theft. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Grisly Reconciliations July 16 2006
By Donald Mitchell #1 HALL OF FAME TOP 10 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
If you haven't read the earlier books in the series, I strongly encourage you to read them first in the correct order (The Sin Killer, The Wandering Hill and By Sorrow's River) before tackling this book.

Should you read this series? Had I known how bloody, painful and unpleasant the details would be, I wouldn't have started.

Since Lord Albany Berrybender first arrived in the United States with a major part of his family (at least the legitimate children) and a small army of servants, he's been looking forward to shooting everything in sight. In this installment (the last) of the four-part series, Lord Berrybender gets a chance to shoot at the most dangerous game of all . . . but rues that he missed a chance to kill a grizzly bear.

This story is not for those who are easily depressed. The book opens with Tasmin Berrybender totally distraught by the murder of her beloved Pomp Charbonneau. To make matters worse, she's pregnant . . . and not sure whether the father is her husband Jim Snow or Pomp. After giving birth, she's still depressed and sends Jim away.

The Berrybenders find themselves under arrest in Santa Fe for two years . . . both to line the government's pocket and to entertain the governor's wife. Lord Albany finds himself smitten with a teenage mistress . . . a liaison that has dangerous consequences for the party. While in Santa Fe, we learn about how the Mexicans liked to deal with Native American outlaws and pursue their private pleasures.

But all is thrown into disarray when the governor is dismissed and a troop comes to march the Berrybenders to Vera Cruz in anticipation of war with the United States. Jim Snow escapes and tracks the group to rescue the Berrybenders. But before he can do that, he has to rescue the Mexican army. The march becomes a death trek like those in many of the earlier books . . . as cholera and slavers take their toll. Jim Snow had been a captive slave, and he takes the slaver attack very personally . . . which leads to a remarkable confrontation in which Jim has the epiphany of his life.

The Berrybenders end up in Texas just in time for the war for independence.

Tasmin and Jim come to a final understanding about their marriage and everyone who has survived has to scope out a new plan for the rest of their lives as they limp into St. Louis.

For those who like exciting action, this book has one spell-binding sequence as Jim Snow becomes a one-man army. If it hadn't been for that portion of the book, I would have rated the book at two stars.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Great summer reading July 6 2004
By Sue
Format:Hardcover
I did not intend to read the whole series, the Berrybender Narratives, but it drew me along to the end, Folly and Glory. This is easy, entertaining reading.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A Fitting Conclusion July 3 2004
Format:Hardcover
A fitting end to a great epic story. Larry McMurtry outdoes himself on the last segment of the Berrybender saga and as usual paints the West with his harsh but realistic brush. Even so, I would like to see what happenned to Tasmin and the rest of the clan but that would mean that the author would have to travel to England, a venue he is not as familiar with. However, I will not sell McMurtry short and if he is of mind, I am sure a fifth in the series could be on the shelves next year. I, for one, am hoping.
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Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Read the Berrybender Saga
Folly and Glory is the last of the four books in the excellent tale. You must start with the first book, Sin Killer. Each story leaves you craving more. Read more
Published on Jun 21 2004 by Reeda
4.0 out of 5 stars This may well be the best of The Berrybender Narratives
It's so nice to see some high-profile Western projects popping up. The first was SIN KILLER, which marked the beginning of Larry McMurtry's four volumes of The Berrybender... Read more
Published on Jun 20 2004 by Bookreporter
3.0 out of 5 stars The Berrybenders Flame out
A slight change of pace from Book #3. After a lengthy stay in Santa Fe with the usual descriptions of Berrybender rhetoric and aristocratic decadence - there's a great conversation... Read more
Published on Jun 18 2004 by Pol Sixe
2.0 out of 5 stars Glory and Folly
The final piece of the Berrybender Narratives, starts out strong, picking up where the the last three left off. Read more
Published on Jun 14 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the last
After reading By Sorrows River, I didn't think I would continue with the series, but I am glad I did. Folly and Glory is much better. Depressing? Yes. Read more
Published on Jun 13 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular!
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. Read more
Published on May 20 2004 by julie marie
5.0 out of 5 stars THE CULMINATION OF A VERY WILD RIDE
FOLLY AND GLORY by Larry McMurtry is a fitting benediction to McMurtry's Berrybender tetralogy. Despite reviews that paint this book as being about as violent as anything that... Read more
Published on May 13 2004 by D. McAllister
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