Western

The Wandering Hill is a winsome successor to Sin Killer, Larry McMurtry's first book in the four-volume Berrybender Narratives, which follow a group of mountain men and a family of eccentric English aristocrats as they tool around the wild American West in the 1830s.

Like its predecessor, The Wandering Hill starts with affectations that are hard to adjust to. I wasn't overly fond of Sin Killer's overbearing vaudeville Western form, but found it tolerable enough, and The Wandering Hill is much the same way at first. McMurtry's eye for character and ear for dialogue keep our stamina up during those moments when we can feel like we've made a mistake in indulging in any more of this whimsical, affected Berrybender nonsense.

Happily, The Wandering Hill finds itself in its second half. Characters become more charming – young Ten, now known as Kate, is adorable – and things start to happen. It's still a disappointingly plotless story, like Sin Killer before it, but in this second half of The Wandering Hill there are at least skirmishes and stampedes and some touching, quiet character moments to entertain us. By this point, the Berrybender narrative has settled in, for all its faults, allowing McMurtry's pleasingly natural storytelling ability to blossom. As the novel progresses, it takes on a more comfortably McMurtry-like tone, and it ends as a quite capable Western adventure. ( )

I'm a little worried that I'll run out of McMurtry novels to read, after I read recently in one of his memoirs that he thinks Rhino Ranch may well be his last. So I went back to the Berrybender series that I missed when it came out originally. Not his best, but enjoyable and I have no doubt that I'll finish the series (this is the second of four). I am struck by the way McMurtry, at his best (and there are little glimmers here) uniquely and unpretentiously captures the thoughts of people who are refusing--or attempting and failing--to understand another person. ( )

The tumultuous, bloody and almost heedless trek of the Berrybenders continues, albeit much of it spent stalled in a trapper's fort waiting for the spring. Tasmin and Sin Killer's married bliss is interrupted by a bout of domestic abuse. Lord Berrybender deteriorates mentally but remains utterly appalling. Babies are on the way: no less than three are born in the course of the novel. Pity the poor babies. Barely crawling and they are subjected to long treks across deserted wilderness, buffalo stampedes, Indian attacks and encounters with the odd cactus.

Readers of the first volume will not be surprised that some of those alive at the end of Sin Killer will no longer enjoy that happy state by the end of The Wandering Hill. Means of death are varied, but death by buffalo - and no, not the stampede - gets in early for most horribly memorable. The story itself remains fresh and unpredictable, and Tamsin develops nicely as a memorable, scrappy, bad-tempered heroine, maturing in her attitudes as life and death teach her harsh lessons abut themselves. One suspects, with two volumes to go, there are a surfeit of both on the way. ( )

Part 2 of Sin Killer series as Berrybenders depart their boat and head for a trading post. Babies are born, adventures and names of many real mountain men are interweaved with the fictional family. ( )