Boone's Lick is a 2000 Western Deconstruction by Larry McMurty. In 1866, a Missouri family travels to the frontier to see the often absent patriarch at Fort Phil Kearney. But is his wife traveling all that way to be with him or divorce him? The book, narrated by their eldest son, was intended to be the first in a trilogy, but the author ended up deciding halfway through the writing process to make it a truncated standalone story.
Tropes:
- Big Bad Wannabe: Hot-Blooded Jerkass outlaw Jake Miller provides a lot of menace and danger in the early chapters (he has committed several murders and the main male characters join a Posse pursuing him) but is captured and unceremoniously executed well before the halfway mark. His gang members (mostly his brothers, cousins, and in-laws) make no effort to avenge him and actually thank Shay, his brother, and their uncle for helping capture Jake and condemn him to that fate.
- Secret Other Family: Shay's father spends most of his time working for the army out west, only coming back to Missouri to see his wife and surviving children for short periods every year or two. When his family head west to see him, they learn that he has over a dozen children with two Native-American women. This makes his wife, who already plans to divorce him, even more curious. Their kids get along well with each other, though.
- Surprise Incest: Downplayed. Shay thinks the local prostitute is pretty, but never tries to sleep with her either before or after learning she's his mother's half-sister.
- Uncertain Doom: Grandpa Crackenthorpe gets washed off the riverboat one night and is never seen again. He probably drowned, but may have just been separated from the others.
