From Publishers Weekly
This is the fourth and final volume in McMurtry's Berrybender Narratives (following By Sorrow's River), a frontier epic of lusty and bloody proportions, in which, fortunately, nearly everyone is killed off. Lord Berrybender, an arrogant and lecherous Englishman and his whining brood of daughters, their brats and servants have been arrested by Mexican authorities and are under house arrest in Santa Fe in the mid-1830s. Tensions between Mexicans and Americans run high as the dispute over Texas drifts toward war. When the Berrybender party is expelled from Santa Fe, the group is forced to march across the desert to Vera Cruz, escorted by inept Mexican soldiers. The grueling journey is filled with hardship and death as thirst, cholera and hostile Indians whittle the group by half. Meanwhile, Jim Snow, aka the Sin Killer, a famous mountain man, plans to rescue his white wife, Tasmin Berrybender, and her family somewhere along the desert route. Once the rescue is complete and the surviving Berrybenders are safely in Texas, Jim goes after the gang of slavers who murdered his son and his Indian wife (mountain men seem to have a lot of wives). Here McMurtry really shows why Jim is called the Sin Killer and why white men and Indians fear the mountain man who shrieks "the Word" and shows no mercy when he is riled up. Of the four books in the series, this is the bloodiest and most brutal, with rapes, torture, mutilation and death heaped upon the characters until grief and despair nearly consume them. Add the disaster at the Alamo and a passel of colorful Texas heroes to the enduring figures of mountain men Kit Carson and Tom Fitzpatrick, and this grisly frontier soap opera concludes with a bang. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Bookmarks Magazine
Take them for what they are, critics say of Folly and Glory and the rest of the Berrybender Narratives, and you might enjoy it. Judge it against Lonesome Dove, and you will inevitably be disappointed. Criticisms of the book include its meandering and thin plot, stereotypical characters, and indiscriminate violence. Still, critics agree that this volume is much better than the previous three, particularly with the matured character of Tasmin. It at least offers a sense of closure and a meditation on the nature of the American frontier. Beware: most reviewers agreed that if you read Folly and Glory separately from the rest of the series, you won’t fully understand the plot. It might be all or nothing of the Berrybender lot! Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.


From AudioFile
The fourth and final novel in Larry McMurtry's Berrybender Narratives features Lord Berrybender and his brood as they are arrested by Mexican authorities and forced to march across the desert to Vera Cruz, escorted by inept Mexican soldiers. Eventually, the family ends up in New Orleans, where they face some difficult decisions. McMurtry, who also wrote LONESOME DOVE, ties up the saga's loose ends in an entertaining way. Actor Alfred Molina's direct yet wry style fits this Western story wonderfully. In addition, Molina's ability to take on various voices adds to the presentation, making this a great conclusion to the bestselling series. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
This is the fourth and concluding volume of the Berrybender Narratives, McMurtry's saga of the four-year odyssey of the Berrybender family as they traverse the various river valleys of the American West in the 1830s. Once again, the heart of the story is the evolving relationship between Tasmin Berrybender and her enigmatic, primitive husband, Jim Snow. Both have changed. Tasmin has learned to cope with the physical demands of a nomadic life and the emotional demands and trauma of motherhood and death. Jim, still capable of savage violence, seems more tender and vulnerable here. As they and their familiar entourage journey eastward from Santa Fe, they encounter various historical personages, including William Clark, Charles Bent, and Davy Crockett. They also endure searing landscapes, cholera, and the constant threat of horrific brutality at the hands of Apaches, Kiowas, Commanches, and slave traders. As always, McMurtry is a gifted storyteller who seamlessly melds multiple plotlines, paints vivid images, and creates memorable literary characters. The ending, while leaving plenty of loose ends, seems satisfying and appropriate. This is a worthy close to an outstanding quartet that has shown McMurtry at his best. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
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 red men 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 black 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.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"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 next. Neither does anyone else - even Captain Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, is puzzled by the great changes sweeping over the West, replacing red men 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 black 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 Oreleans 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 this life in freedom, and where, after all her adventures, Tasmin must finally decide where her future lies.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Larry McMurtry's four-volume series, The Berrybender Narratives, is like a cross between John Ford and Quentin Tarantino: a genre-bending Western farce that follows the misadventures and couplings of a sprawling English family and its hangers-on as it makes its roundabout way across the West in the 1830's...While McMurtry doesn't stint on frantic action, violence or seemingly round-the-clock gropings, Folly and Glory marks a somber and satisfying end to a long, rambunctious trip.—Rodney Welch

Publishers Weekly

This is the fourth and final volume in McMurtry's Berrybender Narratives (following By Sorrow's River), a frontier epic of lusty and bloody proportions, in which, fortunately, nearly everyone is killed off. Lord Berrybender, an arrogant and lecherous Englishman and his whining brood of daughters, their brats and servants have been arrested by Mexican authorities and are under house arrest in Santa Fe in the mid-1830s. Tensions between Mexicans and Americans run high as the dispute over Texas drifts toward war. When the Berrybender party is expelled from Santa Fe, the group is forced to march across the desert to Vera Cruz, escorted by inept Mexican soldiers. The grueling journey is filled with hardship and death as thirst, cholera and hostile Indians whittle the group by half. Meanwhile, Jim Snow, aka the Sin Killer, a famous mountain man, plans to rescue his white wife, Tasmin Berrybender, and her family somewhere along the desert route. Once the rescue is complete and the surviving Berrybenders are safely in Texas, Jim goes after the gang of slavers who murdered his son and his Indian wife (mountain men seem to have a lot of wives). Here McMurtry really shows why Jim is called the Sin Killer and why white men and Indians fear the mountain man who shrieks "the Word" and shows no mercy when he is riled up. Of the four books in the series, this is the bloodiest and most brutal, with rapes, torture, mutilation and death heaped upon the characters until grief and despair nearly consume them. Add the disaster at the Alamo and a passel of colorful Texas heroes to the enduring figures of mountain men Kit Carson and Tom Fitzpatrick, and this grisly frontier soap opera concludes with a bang. (May) Forecast: Reader opinions are mixed on the blackly comic Berrybender series, and McMurtry may have lost some readers along the way, but this strong wind-up should sell solidly. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The wonderful actor Alfred Molina reads what is mercifully the final installment of the four-part "Berrybender Narratives." At the close of By Sorrow's River, the increasingly disgusting Lord Berrybender, his irritatingly whiny daughters, and the rest of the entourage were under house arrest in Santa Fe. It is the mid-1830s, and tensions between the Mexicans and Americans are heating up as the dispute over Texas heads toward war. When the Berrybenders are expelled from Santa Fe and forced to cross the desert without food, their disasters multiply to the point that the listener will shudder from all the mutilations, rapes, tortures, starvation, and slow deaths from thirst. This epic is definitely not for the faint of heart, but it is always a pleasure to hear the words of one of our premier writers read by one of our premier actors. Recommended for public libraries.-Barbara Perkins, Sachse P.L., TX Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

AudioFile

The fourth and final novel in Larry McMurtry's Berrybender Narratives features Lord Berrybender and his brood as they are arrested by Mexican authorities and forced to march across the desert to Vera Cruz, escorted by inept Mexican soldiers. Eventually, the family ends up in New Orleans, where they face some difficult decisions. McMurtry, who also wrote LONESOME DOVE, ties up the saga's loose ends in an entertaining way. Actor Alfred Molina's direct yet wry style fits this Western story wonderfully. In addition, Molina's ability to take on various voices adds to the presentation, making this a great conclusion to the bestselling series. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews