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Leif Enger

SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME

PEACE LIKE A RIVER

SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME
Leif Enger
Atlantic Monthly Press
Fiction
ISBN: 9780871139856

It's been seven years since Leif Enger triumphed with his first novel, PEACE LIKE A RIVER. If one were to ask why it took so long for him to produce SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME, one need only crack open the book and begin to experience the life of Monte Becket, the Minnesota writer who is wracking his brain in a failing struggle to pen his second novel.

It is 1915, and Monte has started seven second novels and discarded them all. He feels pressure to succeed, as he has quit his job to become a full-time writer, but at the same time he is getting no such grief from his wife. She believes in him wholeheartedly, even as he begins to think that he should give up and go back to work. It is then that Glendon Hale rows past on the river and lures Monte into a bittersweet tale of redemption, complete with the adventure one might find in an old dime pulp western tale.

Glendon left his wife, Blue, years ago, and the guilt he feels has been tearing him apart. Now, as he gets on in life, he is compelled to seek her out and apologize. The two men set off on the rails, and all is well until a ghost from Glendon's past emerges to turn the quaint trip into a flight from justice. An ex-Pinkerton agent, Charles Siringo --- who himself is now a bestselling author --- latches on to Glendon with the intention of turning him in for a long-ago crime.

The chase ensues, with Charles dogging them south and west, in and out of the lives of an assorted cast of characters, until eventually they go to California and Glendon gets his opportunity to come face to face with his beloved Blue. Monte, who has been changed by all he has seen and heard on this adventure, calls for his wife and son to come west for a time, and a sense of peace and redemption is found.

Enger's second novel was, like Monte's, a difficult birth. For all of the struggle, however, he has set down a beautiful book that is completely heartfelt, honest and true. Because of that, it is impossible for any reader not to believe every moment of this remarkable adventure.

Monte is a likable, albeit somewhat bumbling, narrator with the best of intentions. Charles is so passionate in his desire to capture and turn in Glendon after years of failed attempts that you almost find yourself hoping he gets his man. And the gem hidden within, intertwined with the stories of Glendon, Monte and Charles, is a young man named Hood Roberts, who threatens to steal the show for his own.

SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME is a true joy of a book. Trying to follow on the success of PEACE LIKE A RIVER was a daunting task, but Enger is certainly capable enough as a storyteller to pen a worthy successor, one that is wholly different and yet, at the same time, incredibly familiar.

Moments of genuine surprise keep you smiling through the trials and tribulations experienced by the heroes of the tale, touched with a bittersweet sense of the days when new acquaintances became old friends on a journey of chivalry and self-discovery in the Old West. Within every passage on every page is a lyrical magic that enchants and yields pure satisfaction right until the conclusion --- and then you lament an end that comes too soon.

--- Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard

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