Berrybender Narratives #3
Pocket
April 2004
On Sale: March 30, 2004
432 pages ISBN: 0743451430 EAN: 9780743451437 Mass Market Paperback Add to Wish List
In this tale of adventure, at once high-spirited and
terrifying, set against the background of the West that
Larry McMurtry has made his own, By Sorrow's River is an
epic in its own right with an extraordinary young woman as
its leading figure.
At the heart of this third volume of his Western saga
remains the beautiful and determined Tasmin Berrybender,
now married to the "Sin Killer" and mother to their young
son, Monty, who, although Tasmin intends him to be an
English gentleman like his grandfather, is at the moment
living the childhood of a savage.
By Sorrow's River continues the Berrybender party's trail
across the endless Great Plains of the West toward Santa
Fe, where they intend, those who are lucky enough to
survive the journey, to spend the winter. Along the way,
Tasmin, whose husband, Jim Snow, has vanished off to scout
ahead of them, falls in love with Pomp Charbonneau, only
to see him killed by the ruthless commander of Spanish
troops, while her father, Lord Berrybender, now reduced to
limping along on one leg and a pair of crutches,
increasingly makes a fool of himself by falling in love
with his own mistress. They meet up with a vast cast of
characters from the history of the West: Kit Carson, the
famous scout; Le Partezon, the fearsome Sioux war chief;
The Ear Taker, an Indian whose specialty is creeping up on
people while they are asleep and slicing an ear off with a
sharp knife; two aristocratic Frenchmen whose eccentric
aim is to cross the Great Plains by hot air balloon; a
party of slavers led by the cowardly but bloodthirsty
Obregon; a band of raiding Pawnee; and many other
astonishing characters who prove, once again, that the
rolling,grassy plains are not, in fact, nearly as empty of
life as they look. Most of what is there is dangerous and
hostile, even when faced with Tasmin's remarkable, frosty
sangfroid. She is one of the strongest and most
interesting of Larry McMurtry's women characters, fairly
resistant to shock, whether at bloodshed, the behavior of
children, or sex, and at the center of this powerful and
ambitious novel of the West.
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