So Brave, Young, and Handsome

I feel lucky to be one of the last to find out about Leif Enger's Peace Like a River . My initial thought after finishing that book was, "Wow.
That was great." My second thought was, "Has he written anything else?"

The reason I call myself lucky is because I didn't have to wait so long for Enger's second book. So Brave, Young, and Handsome was released April 22, 2008. It's not often that I'm on the cutting edge of the book world: Most of my favorite authors have been dead for some time, and I rarely buy new books. But there was something in Peace Like a River that captured me and compelled me to get Enger's new book.

The plot goes something like this: An aging train robber decides to head west before the end of his life to make amends with his estranged wife. Coming along for the journey is his unlikely friend, the one-hit-wonder writer Monte Becket, whose first book was a runaway success, but now he feels a failure, having used up all the "medicine" in his first effort. The two travel together, joined by the impetuous Hood Roberts, a would-be cowboy in a world where cowboys are fast becoming extinct, and pursued by the undaunted Charles Siringo, an ex-Pinkerton agent trying to relive his glory days (and possibly seek revenge?).

At first, I thought the characters had cheesy names: Monte Becket. Glendon Hale. Redstart. Hood Roberts. Royal Davies. Blue. But each person's name, like many biblical names, says something about them. Most of the characters also have aliases that are employed at different times throughout the story, and at that point, the names become very important (especially in a beautiful scene at the end that depicts the importance of names before God). And, as Redstart, Becket's son, says, you have power over a person if you know that person's name. (A side note: I also found out that Charles Siringo is a real real person, and his memoirs are also real.)

The path to reconciliation is a hard one. At first, Becket is ignorant of Hale's train-robbing past. When he finds out, he wonders that he continues along the trail and avoids the temptations to return to his wife. In fact, it's somewhat unclear why Becket does continue with Hale. The first image we have of Glendon Hale is his rowing upriver—going against the current—standing up as he rows. Monte Becket is his
opposite: You'd find him sitting in the boat without a paddle—wherever the current goes, he follows.

This leads Becket into the company of Siringo. Glendon enjoins Becket to return to his wife, which he agrees to do, but is instead "captured" by Charles Siringo, who forces him to travel with him in order to find Glendon. It is an unlikely team-up, but their varying personalities—Siringo the take-charge and Becket the go-with-the-flow type—and similar avocations (both being writers on the side) makes their travels together interesting, to say the least. I especially enjoyed their conversations about writing.

The story has many twists and turns, but it ultimately reaches an uneasy climax with Glendon face to face with his former wife, who has moved on with her life and remarried. I call it an "uneasy climax" because their reunion is not a one-moment event. It isn't that Glendon receives what he seeks (or is rejected) in an instant and the story ends. Glendon instead stays, with the permission of Blue's abundantly gracious husband, on Blue's property, waiting for the grace and forgiveness he so desperately needs, or waiting to be turned away with finality. It is ultimately an act that would seem to turn Glendon away from Blue that results in their reconciliation (which is a paradox of grace, that we find it when it seems we would be least likely to).

The story is told from Monte Becket's perspective, and thus it is full of literary allusions and lofty vocabulary (which I found different from the narrator in Peace Like a River). Glendon Hale is implicitly and explicitly compared to both Peter Pan and Don Quixote, both apt comparisons. Glendon Hale is in many ways quixotic: He is living in a world in which the glory of the old west is coming to a close under the rise of technological innovation, and his quest is a "quest of honor," of seemingly little value to what is going on around him. But he is like Peter Pan in that, even in this changing world, he is the unaging spirit of youth, sprightly even in his advanced years. This is contrasted to Charles Siringo, who, driven by resentment and reputation, seems nothing more than old bones and leathery skin. Having nothing to live for but immortality, he shows his age through every wrinkle of his face. He is like Javert, inexorably tracking Glendon even when his reason for doing so is unclear to himself. There is no room in him for grace.

The book is fairly fast-paced, though not in a traditional sense (i.e., the plot is not convoluted and mysterious to keep the reader engrossed). What keeps the reader reading is attachment to the vivid characters. The chapters are all very short (attributed to the galloping, page-turner nature of old westerns [an alternate theory is that each chapter is around 1,000 words, the number Becket vows to write each day until his book is finished]). Most chapters end on a cliffhanger, but the suspense at the end of the chapter is not of the kind manufactured by withholding necessary information. Instead, the chapter endings generate a natural curiosity about the characters and the events that will befall them next. Enger writes the story in such a way that it is hard to put down.

So Brave, Young, and Handsome is not about the unbelievable, at times fantastic, miracles of life, but is more about the subtle miracles that happen in our everyday lives—the miracles of love, fidelity, friendship, forgiveness, and grace. None of the characters seem deserving of any of these, but it is the divine nature of the Giver that allows them to be recipients of the gifts. Because of the subtlety, the book does not seem as grand in scale as Enger's last book—and it isn't. There aren't as many powerful images that stick with the reader upon finishing. But rather than this being a step backward, So Brave, Young, and Handsome seems more a step to the side: It is a beautiful book in its own right, and it shows that there is beauty even in the seemingly mundane. Grace is within everyone's reach, if only they would respond.