Folly and Glory: A Novel


Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
16
Narrator
2
Release Date
May 2004
Duration
8 hours 30 minutes
Summary
In this brilliant saga—the final volume of The Berrybender Narratives and an epic in its own right—Larry McMurtry lives up to his reputation for delivering novels with “wit, grace, and more than a hint of what might be called muscular nostalgia, fit together to create a panoramic portrait of the American West” (The New York Times Book Review).

As this finale 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, English, American, and Native American. 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. Neither does anyone else—even Captain Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, is puzzled by the great changes sweeping over the West, replacing Native Americans and buffalo with towns and farms.

In the meantime, Jim Snow, accompanied by Kit Carson, journeys to New Orleans, where he meets up with a muscular giant named Juppy, who turns out to be one of Lord Berrybender’s many illegitimate offspring, and 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—if New Orleans of the time can be called that—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.
Reviews
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Julie Badger

I differ with the previous pan of the series as a whole. While this last leg of the Berrybender series is somewhat lackluster, I very much enjoyed the previous books and would recommend them. No, they're not Lonesome Dove, but heck, what is? The Berrybenders are tons of fun if you enjoy dysfunctional families, mouthy women, and the English gift of understateemnt. They make my family seem normal and I'm sticking with them!

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James O.

One of the most idealistic of what America was and still is possible

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Gem Spector

This is the first of McMurtry's series starring the tedious, cloying,silly Berrybender family. I read the last one first; so I can save you the trouble. McMurtry bombs with this series. Save yourself the time, trouble, and energy; read Lonesome Dove again instead.

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