Larry McMurtry, who seems to write good books as quickly as most people can read them, has returned to his favorite subject, the American West, in “Sin Killer” (Simon and Schuster, 304 pages, $25), the first of a promised four novels to be known collectively as The Berrybender Narratives.
If “Sin Killer” is the standard, the other three can’t get here fast enough.
This time, instead of following cowboys on a cattle drive (“Lonesome Dove” and its literary offspring) or trailing an American pioneer family as it heads west (“Boone’s Lick”), McMurtry has taken a seat aboard the great steamer Rocky Mount as it pushes up the Missouri River in 1832.
The ship’s most important cargo is a rich and buffoonish English lord who has come to the States solely to “shoot different animals from those he shot at home.”
Lord Albany Berrybender’s kooky collection of children and staff members certainly puts the fun in dysfunctional. McMurtry has populated his boat with a manorful of misfits, from a mysterious child named Seven (the lord numbered his last 10 children; naming them proved too tiresome) to Venetia Kennet, a Haydn-playing cellist whose attempts to snag the rich lord gain her something less than she has bargained for, particularly after Berrybender’s unfortunate encounters with a discharging gun, a knife-wielding Sioux and frostbite.
Lewis and Clark, meet Monty Python.
There are moments when McMurtry’s wit pushes the family’s adventure perilously close to the shoals of slapstick and farce, but he’s skillful enough to pull away before crashing.
For one thing, few authors match McMurtry’s voice of unsentimental authority when it comes to describing the random brutality and natural hazards that greeted those hardy pioneers who ventured west of, say, St. Louis in the 1800s. For another, McMurtry grants at least one of the English interlopers more than a shred of dignity. Tasmin Berrybender is spoiled rotten, but she’s also a randy, spirited and independent woman. At its heart, the novel is a love story between Tasmin and Jim Snow, the “Sin Killer” of the title, an Indian fighter who seems to appear whenever Tasmin needs him, which is often.
Each of the four novels will follow the Berrybenders along a different river — treks along the Yellowstone, the Rio Grande and the Brazos await. There are plenty of story strands still dangling from the Missouri River ride to keep readers eager for the next installment.
One river down, three to go.
