Sin Killer: A Novel (Berrybender Narratives)
by Larry McMurtry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Larry McMurtryEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-08-02
ISBN: 0743246845
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of Sin Killer: A Novel (Berrybender Narratives)
Book Review: More absurd than realistic but great storytelling
Summary: 3 Stars
This first in the Berrybender series sets the stage for the future books by presenting most of the characters, with their unique personalities and their individual priorities, in the first few chapters. The setting of an English family riding up the Missouri hunting for game allows for great story-telling and wild adventures, and Sin Killer does not disappoint. Balancing fear and terror, with passion and humor, the people seem to move from one problem to another with a seemingly objective acceptance of each situation. The absurdity of the setting and the reactions of the people often seem antithetical to the harsh realities of the early West. This incongruousness is jarring at times, and at other times confusing but makes for a jolly romp through the story.
It is difficult, however, to deal with McMurtry's lack of character building and lack of thorough descriptions of the land and the people. Many writers build long runways and describe in detail how that is done, but McMurtry jumps in the plane and takes off! The reader learns about the people from the events and the reactions rather than through careful examination. This makes for a feeling of randomness and a suspicion of a lack of direction and goals. Still, it is hard to be too critical since the story does move quickly and is rather engaging all the way to the end.
Of the four books in the series, By Sorrow's River remains my favorite, but Sin Killer is an admirable first book. As to the inevitable comparisons to Lonesome Dove, I resist doing so due to the inherent unfairness of such endeavors. Larry McMurtry is an important writer today whose books should be judged individually rather than compared to previous production.
Summary of Sin Killer: A Novel (Berrybender Narratives)
In Larry McMurtry's Sin Killer, the first novel of a major four-volume work, it is 1830, and the Berrybender family, rich aristocratic English, and fiercely out of place, is on its way up the Missouri River to see the American West as it begins to open up. At the core of the book is daughter Tasmin's relationship with Jim Snow, frontiersman, ferocious Indian fighter, and part-time preacher (known up and down the Missouri as the "Sin Killer"), the strong, handsome, silent Westerner who captures her heart.Larry McMurtry has created a wonderfully engaging family confronting every bigger-than-life personality of the frontier as the Berrybenders make their way up the great river, surviving attacks, discomfort, savage weather, and natural disaster. At once epic, comic, and as big as the West itself, it is the kind of novel that only Larry McMurtry can write.
Larry McMurtry's Sin Killer is a wildly entertaining ride through the untamed Great Plains. The first installment of a proposed tetralogy, The Berrybender Narratives, Sin Killer follows the adventures of the Berrybenders, a large, noble English family traveling the Missouri River in 1832. This deeply self-absorbed and spoiled family leaves England for the unknown of the American West, based solely on a "whim" and Lord Berrybender's desire to "shoot different animals from those he shot at home." The novel joins the family as they make their way toward Yellowstone aboard a luxury steamer, accompanied by a motley assemblage of servants, guides, and natives. Along the way, this "floating Europe" and its bickering, stubborn passengers encounter constant adversity, including warring natives, hellacious weather, accidental deaths, and kidnappings.
Thanks largely to Sin Killer's gallery of colorful personalities, McMurtry keeps most of the action firmly in the realm of fish-out-of-water farce. One such character is the independent and opinionated eldest daughter Tasmin, who, frustrated by her family's conventions, escapes the steamer, whereupon she meets and falls in love with Jim Snow, a.k.a. Sin Killer. Snow, an Indian killer raised by natives, is a stoical, God-fearing man who won't tolerate blasphemy. With prose that flows as naturally as the Missouri, McMurtry weaves together a large cast and vast setting into a thoroughly exciting, hilarious adventure novel. Though Sin Killer focuses on a love story and contains plenty of realistic violence, McMurtry's efficient voice and matter-of-fact perspective leaves little room for tragedy or sentimentality, instead emphasizing high comedy. This is wonderful storytelling from a narrator in perfect agreement with his subject. Sin Killer should please McMurtry's many fans, who now have much to look forward to. --Ross Doll
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