So Brave, Young, and Handsome
Leif Enger, 2008
Grove/Atlantic
287 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802144171
Summary
A stunning successor to his best selling novel Peace Like a River, Leif Enger’s new work is a rugged and nimble story about an aging train robber on a quest to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life, and the failed writer who goes with him.
In 1915 Minnesota, novelist Monte Becket has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives simply with his wife and son.
But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself.
Glendon has spent years in obscurity, but the guilt he harbors for abandoning his wife, Blue, over two decades ago, has lured him from hiding. As the modern age marches swiftly forward, Glendon aims to travel back to his past—heading to California to seek Blue’s forgiveness.
Beguiled and inspired, Monte soon finds himself leaving behind his own family to embark for the unruly West with his fugitive guide.
As they desperately flee from the relentless Charles Siringo, an ex-Pinkerton who’s been hunting Glendon for years, Monte falls ever further from his family and the law, to be tempered by a fiery adventure from which he may never get home. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1961
• Where—Sauk Centre, Minnesota, USA
• Education—Moorhead State University
• Currently—lives near Aitkin, Minnesota
Since his teens, Leif Enger has wanted to write fiction. He worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio from 1984 until the sale of Peace Like a River to publisher Grove/Atlantic allowed him to take time off to write.
In the early 1990s, he and his older brother, Lin, writing under the pen name L.L. Enger, produced a series of mystery novels featuring a retired baseball player.
Peace Like a River, published in 2001, has been described as "high-spirited and unflagging" and has received some notable acclaim in literary circles. His second novel, So Brave, Young, and Handsome is the story of an aging train robber's quest for self-discovery. Published in 2008, it received has excellent reviews. In 2018 Enger released Virgil Wander, a midwestern twist on magical realism about a town—and its inhabitants—struggling for a new lease on life.
Enger is married and lives on a farm in Minnesota with his wife. They have two sons. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
So Brave, Young, and Handsome is an adventure of the heart and mind as much as of the body. This second novel from Enger will not move you as deeply as Peace Like a River did, but it is far more than just a hectically plotted cowboy adventure story. A famous literary editor once said, "Never be sincere. Sincerity is the death of writing." But Enger proves him wrong. His new novel is romantic but not silly. It belongs to a golden time at the edge of our collective memory of what life—and stories—were like when the West was young and a tale was something to read aloud at night under the lamplight. The world Enger writes about here is a vanished one, but Enger has brought it back to life by the force of his belief.
Carrie Brown - Washington Post
[Leif Enger is] a formidably gifted writer, one whose fictions are steeped in the American grain.... [He] is-like Ron Hansen-a child-friendly, contemporary American heartland novelist, a writer unafraid to concoct and couch his stories in such terms as faith, miracle, sin and grace, repentance and redemption, atonement and absolution.... Enger is a masterful storyteller...possessed of a seemingly effortless facility for the stiletto-sharp drawing of wholly believable characters [and] a pitch-perfect ear for the cadences and syntax of Midwest and Great Plains vernacular. His Amishly carpentered prose smacks of plow work, prairie, flapjacks and cider, butter churns, denim and calico.... At times reminiscent of the sinew and gristle in the craggier work of Annie Proulx, and at other times aspiring to a Jean Shepherdesque folk poetry.... So Brave, Young, and Handsome is affable and human as all get out, homespun and sophisticated at once, wise and knowing about the ubiquity of the human condition and the vagaries of the human heart.
Bruce Olds - Chicago Tribune
A superbly written, utterly compelling story of self-discovery and redemption disguised as a cracking good adventure tale.... Enger has created a work of great humanity and huge heart, a riveting piece of fiction that while highly accessible is never shallow. This story of an ordinary man's discovery of who he is and his place in the world is exciting, admirable and ultimately very affecting.... After reading the final page, don't be surprised if you find yourself shaking your head and murmuring, "Wow. What a good book."
Peter Moore - Minneapolis Star Tribune
So Brave, Young, and Handsome is an almost perfect novel, lively and engrossing, full of surprises, funny, touching, and a great read.... [This novel] will appeal to fans of Larry McMurty's Western epics, but also to those who enjoy the magical realism of Isabel Allende and Alice Hoffman. The straightforward narrative, recounted in a single voice, keeps us turning the pages, faster and faster, and by the time the story comes full circle, Enger will have plenty of new fans hoping he gets to work soon on his next book.
Gail Pennington - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
An inviting voice guides readers through this expansive saga of redemption in the early 20th-century West and gives a teeming vitality to a period often represented with stock phrases and stock characters. Novelist Monte Becket isn't a terribly distinguished figure; his first and only published work hit five years before the story's start and he is about to reclaim his job at a smalltown Minnesota post office when he meets Glendon Hale, a former outlaw who is traveling to Mexico to find his estranged wife. He persuades Becket to join him, and the two set off on a long journey peopled with sharply carved characters (among them a Pinkerton thug tracking down Glendon) and splendid surprises. As Monte's narration continues, the tale veers away from Monte's artistic struggle and becomes an adventure story. The progress has its listless moments, but Enger crafts scenes so rich you can smell the spilled whiskey and feel the grit.
Publishers Weekly
Enger's (Peace Like a River) sophomore effort is at once engaging and curiously flat, somewhat like its Midwestern setting. In 1915 Minnesota, Monte Becket, a writer trying to follow up a runaway best seller (like Enger himself), leaves his incomplete novels, his wife, and his son to go on a quest. Glendon Hale, a boat builder with a checkered past, takes Monte with him on his journey to apologize to the wife he abandoned 20 years previously. Their trip takes many unexpected detours while they try to avoid the ex-detective who has pursued Glendon for several decades. What awaits them at the end of their journey surprises both men. This is a particularly American tale, with many elements from both penny Westerns and Mark Twain; the plot is improbable, but the writing is absorbing. Libraries where Enger's first novel was popular will want this book as well.
Amy Ford - Library Journal
A belated follow-up to a popular debut finds the Midwestern novelist in fine storytelling form, as he spins a picaresque tale of redemption and renewal amid the fading glories of the Old West. Some readers will undoubtedly find autobiographical implications in the protagonist conjured by Enger (Peace Like a River, 2001).... This story has its start in 1915, just as [author Monte] Becket abandons his final manuscript, when a mysterious geezer in a rowboat passes his Minnesota riverfront home (with a nod toward Enger's earlier novel, rivers run through this one) and ultimately entices Becket to join him on an adventure that will change both of their lives. The mysterious man's name may or may not be Glendon Hale; he may or may not be an outlaw on the run; and he most certainly is a boat-building alcoholic. With the encouragement of his painter wife, Becket leaves behind a comfortable home and a loving family to accompany Hale on a pilgrimage, one that will find Becket learning more about his companion's identity while assuming an alias of his own. As they head south toward Mexico and then west to California, they find their travels enlivened by a young accomplice who joins them and a pursuer who trails them, a former Pinkerton detective who has also enjoyed some literary success. Revelations abound, for both Becket and the reader. Though Becket laments that he "can't write a(nother) book that anyone will want to read," Enger has.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What elements of Enger's book play off the conventions of cowboy movies and cowboy novels? In Chapter 12, we read "And so it came down to a farmhouse. As it so often does!" (p. 232) Monte's son, Redstart, "knew which members of the James Gang had once ridden into our town to knock over a bank and been shot to moist rags for their trouble" (p.4). What other traditions of the cowboy genres do you recognize in the book? The lore of train robberies? Cattle rustling? The nugget of goodness under the outlaw behavior?
2. How does Enger make these outsized characters convincing? Is there value as well as mayhem in these renegades? In their diction, do you find an odd level of civility even as death and destruction are threatened? For instance, look at some of the rather elegant locutions, such as that of Siringo on p. 115: "I'm leaving, you gentlemen may have this rocky paradise to yourselves."
3. Does it make sense that it is Susannah who sets Monte free to make his journey with Glendon "because he dreamed of his wife" (p. 37)? But then, "Love is a strange fact—it hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. It makes no sense at all" (p. 37). Talk about love in the book, relationships that occur or are recalled.
4. How does Enger give us characters' inner lives? Are there some characters we feel we know inside and out? Which ones? Who in the book is most adept at holding us at a distance? Is that part of the person's charm as well as enigma?
5. We read about a number of marriages in So Brave, Young, and Handsome. We begin and end with that of Monte and Susannah. Do you think it is a good marriage? Talk also about Mr. and Mrs. Davies. What about Blue and Glendon? And later Blue/Arandana and Soto, as well as Charlie Siringo and his wife who forgot who he was. Does Monte learn from each of these tales? You might look again at question #3.
6. Monte and Siringo are juxtaposed as both adversaries and an oddly linked couple. Even as a captive, Monte maintains communication. "In the meantime I tried to remain pleasant company. He loved talking about books, especially his own, and his other favorite, Ecclesiastes. That treatise with its severe rhetoric—'all is meaningless'—he had by heart, often enlisting its author, Solomon, in his arguments against bothersome ideas like altruism and honor and clemency" (p. 207). Does this passage set an important dichotomy between Siringo and Monte? Why does Monte prefer Proverbs? Look, too, at Siringo's catechism on honor on p. 191.
7. Royal Davies, the Kansas City policeman, says, "You're doing these youngsters no service, you know...you authors, I mean—this world ain't no romance, in case you didn't notice." But Monte later says, "I take issue with Royal, much as I came to like him; violent and doomed as this world might be, a romance it certainly is" (p. 51). Talk about this idea. Think about the definition of "romance" as a medieval tale about a hero of chivalry. How has Enger explored "romance" in the book?
8. What is the result of Monte's weaving Susannah and Redstart into every turn of his story? Why do you think he consistently fails to write his wife? Ambivalence about what he's doing in this runaway adventure? Guilt? Another kind of writer's block?
9. How is Hood held up as a version of the chivalric hero? Is he almost a foundling for Monte and Glendon? How is he depicted as golden boy (cherubic, even), magnificent horseman, boon companion, and charismatic lover? After Hood's initial conquest on a horse, Monte says, "It was as stunning an ascension as any I have seen (p. 143). How is Hood like a comet? "A cowboy doesn't ask for much, that's my observation. A flashy ride, a pretty girl, momentary glory—for a day or two, I'm glad to say, Hood Roberts had them all" (p. 145). Was his reversal inevitable, do you think, given his character?
10. Describe Glendon as a phenomenon. What are traits you hold onto? Is it his melting disappearances? How are both Siringo and Glendon almost phoenixes, myths that resurface despite the odds?
11. In contrast to the romance of heroic exploits, what are some blasts of reality? Would you agree that this is not a comfortable fairy tale? "We were a dozen weary men in a damp room with one smoky candle for light and no prospect of rest" (p. 159). What are other times Monte and his cohorts are battered by weather, hunger, or assailants? Is the life of the outlaw worthwhile?
12. If you were to cast this book as a movie, who would play the principal roles? What would be essential scenes? As a director, how would you handle the frame tale of Monte, Susannah, and Redstart? Is there actually another frame tale?
13. Is it justice that Glendon is seeking in the novel? For whom? Do you think it is achieved? Is forgiveness as important as justice in the book?
14. The novel's humor is sometimes ironic or deadpan, other times pure slapstick. What purpose does recurrent comedy serve in a story with such violence and loss?
15. Almost every major character in the novel has more than one name, whether an alias (like Jack Waits), a stage name (Deep Breath Darla), or a translation (Blue). What is the significance of a person's "true name?" Does the revelation of one's true name put him, as Redstart claims, at the mercy of others? Is that a bad thing?
16. What is the time of the novel? Enger gives us a date, but what are other clues? Driving with pride eighty miles in a day? Pancho Villa?
17. How do books pervade the novel? Monte, of course, is an author, and we follow his discomfort about producing a second success. But books are important to other people, too. Who are they? Emma Davies? Her grandmother as literary critic? (see p. 53). What happens to the book Monte had inscribed to Emma? How does Siringo's easy writing and reciting of his compelling narrative affect Monte? How does the library of Claudio and Arandana define them?
18. "Most men are hero and devil," says Siringo (p. 224). Does that statement hold true in the book? And in general? Is it a description better reserved for leaders? Politicians, even statesmen, outlaws, C.E.O.s, Hollywood stars, sports idols? Who else? Do people in this book understand and accept this idea of human nature?
19. How is Darlys the Sharpshooter a pivotal figure? Think about her deft explosion of the glass orb in Monte's hand as well as her well practiced aim later at Siringo who has cruelly spurned her.
20. Siringo blazes from the pages, always surprising. This is the man who "left off cowboying when the profession of detective was chosen for him at a public demonstration of phrenology" (p. 173). Who is this "dark personage" (p. 178)? When do we see his menace most startlingly? He's an "old vulture" who "ate like a scavenging bird in big swallows without evident pleasure" (p. 197). Does that image tell us something about Siringo's other actions in the book? We know about his treachery to Monte. "That he could trust me was my own disgrace" (p. 205). Other times, "the old monster was capable of gratitude after all" (p. 180), to both Dr. Clary and Monte. Talk about his brilliant manipulation of the town of Alva. What is your ultimate evaluation of Siringo?
21. "Say what you like about melodrama, it beats confusion" (p. 262). Is this how we feel after reading a page-turner? Enger's book has ambiguity to spare, but are you in doubt at the end about events or characters?
22. Where do our sympathies lie in So Brave, Young, and Handsome? Did you feel a loss as Hood sank deeper into runaway crime? Is everyone on the trail tainted except maybe Monte? Is he, as well?
23. At the end, Glendon is able to give himself to the service of others, to Soto and Blue. Do you think he is truly selfless at this point? Can you possibly think he is not maneuvering? What is his persuasive act that settles the point?
24. The rivers, from the Cannon in Minnesota to the Rienda in California, link the sagas of the book and provide a central theme. Did you find it inevitable to compare Monte and Glendon to Huck and Jim in the Twain celebration of the Mississippi? "People on riverbanks understand one another. "If you can't be on a boat, a dock will do" (p. 55). The Kaw in Kansas City provides a moment of respite as well as another escape. How? How does the Hundred and One disaster, the Salt Fork flood, create a scene of biblical proportions? How is the post-lapsarian world a turning point and a rebirth for some of the characters?
25. Do you see an analogy with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the book? (There are even recurrent windmills!) Can you talk about the idea of the Quest? The idealism, as well as the consistent blanket of reality? Give examples?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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