Boone's Lick is a backwater town in Missouri . The setting is the American West during the Civil War. Mary Margaret Cecil and her growing family are living off the land the best they can. Her husband Dickie is a supplier for the forts of the US Army and travels far and wide securing himself with an Indian wife and family at every fort on the Oregon Trail. Mary Margaret has had enough of his never-do-well ways and decides to pack up her family and her beloved brother-in-law, Uncle Seth, in a wagon and travel up the Missouri River to find her husband Dickie and put an end to his galavanting ways. Along the way they procure an old Indian who guides them and a French traveling minister who sort of helps guide them. They lose old Grandpa Crackenthorpe in a storm, they meet several bands of Indians, including Pawnee, Comanche, Sioux, and the terrifying Blackfoot, as well as three Indian families of Dickie's. When they finally reach Wyoming and find "Pa", Mary Margaret delivers him his walking papers.
Among the characters are the shy but ambitious son Shay, his temperous brother G.T., their fearless little sister Neva, baby Marcy, Mary Margaret or "Ma", crazy and delusional Grandpa Crackenthorpe, the family caretaker Uncle Seth, Ma's whore sister Aunt Rosie, Wild Bill Hickok, Sheriff Baldy Stone, the all-knowing Indian Charlie Seven Days, father Pere Villy, and the infamous Dick Cecil himself.
This book is so humorous, I found myself giggling at every turn of a page. The frontier life and Civil War era is luring to me and I enjoyed it very much. Larry McMurtry is at his very best and cannot be outwritten when it comes to westerns. The book was published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster Inc. Go get it right away, you won't be sorry!
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