Book Review: So Brave, Young, and Handsome

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After reading Leif Enger's Peace Life a River I honestly wasn't sure I wanted to pick up this book, his second. And in case you do not go over to my linked review, do know that I loved the book. 

No. It is the case of liking the book so much that I'd set myself up to assume that any subsequent books by Enger {Leif, to be specific, as I've discovered he has a brother, Lin, of whose works I've not read- yet} had to be absolutely stellar, or downright bad. It's like movie sequels, right?

I was wrong. But not completely. This is a good book, in the sense that it is well-written and peeks into the thing that makes a person a person. But I just didn't make a connection like Peace Like a River did. I would have to go back to my Goodreads and see how long it took me to read the two but I'm going to step out on a limb and say this one took twice as long. {Never mind that I read half of it in 2 hours while sitting in a public library waiting for the day to pass while in Detroit last month.}

While I was reading there were so many similarities between books, albeit completely different characters and settings, that I had much to think on in terms of 'what does that mean?' Not in the sense of what did Enger mean, because really, how often does a writer set out to inflect a certain meaning throughout his works; meanings that can be found in more than one work. I don't think it is intentional. Of course I'm not a writer. I could be completely wrong.

The main character is Monte Becket: a one-hit wonder in the literary world. Married to an ever patient wife and father to a boy with stories in his head. The story starts out without fanfare. There is no great declaration of his awesomeness or his great deeds, or even what he plans to have happen. It doesn't give indication, but for a little catch here and there, of the story that will unfold. 

Other characters, because Monte's wife Susannah and son Redstart are not really in the story much but the beginning, in passing mention, and then towards the end, are Glendon, Siringo, and Hood Roberts. Of course there are others who you get to know a little. Like the little doctor {which now I wonder if he truly was 'little'- just his demeanor suggests he was small; I'll give a bit of the story later on of which he is featured} who treats Siringo somewhere mid-book, and Darla. Oh, yes and the actor Ern Swilling. Both have brief but important parts. 

What happens though is that Monte takes a journey, first with Glendon and then continues on with Siringo, that changes him quite a bit. Through the whole adventure he {and therefore we} catches glimpses and straight-in-the-face instances of what drives a person, what goes on in the minds of some people. In the end, we can see how people are changed. 

Here's that bit from the book I said I'd share: 

    On the third day Clary dosed Siring heavily and went in after the bullet. He located it between the rib it had smashed and the lung it would have pierced otherwise. Waking afterward Siringo told the doctor he had strolled through a deepening valley at the bottom of which he'd glimpsed the gates of Hell- black as you'd expect with the usual smoke rising in the background. His voice amused, Siringo described an emissary who had come from the gates dressed in shiny skin like an eel's. The emissary told Siringo they had a room reserved under his name but he wasn't coming in just yet.
    Clary said, "I know a preacher in Ponca City. I'll send for him if you like."
    "To what point and purpose?" said Charles Siringo.
    "Well, in case you wish to make a reservation elsewhere."
    "Be an adult, Mr. Clary. It happened in my mind. My own good brain carved out that valley and built those gates; that eel-skin fellow was my own conjuring."
    Clary regarded him placidly. "Most men would prefer not to take the chance."
    I will say for Siringo that he held to his convictions. Weak from days of fever and pain, he still found the strength to say, "I can't believe I let an idiot probe my guts with a knife."
    "As you wish," said Clary.

I didn't like this book as much as I liked his first book. I finished it less than an hour ago and so I am still processing what I've read. In time I may come to like it more as I have opportunity to connect with the book, the writing, and the characters. But I do not think it will place as high as- no, I know it will not- Peace Like a River. 

Another bit that I connected with {my dad used to smoke a pipe and so the smell is something that brings pleasant memories}:

    As the day warmed, we warmed to the man we followed. "See how he tends his dog," Siringo remarked, as we wound through a patch of spiny low cacti.
    "How do you mean? I don't see the dog's prints at all here."
    "Right, he's carrying the little chap," Siringo said.
    "How far ahead?"
    Siringo didn't answer but less than an hour he reined up in a place where the earth sank and softened and blue-green moss appeared on the stones.
    "Do you smell that?" he said.
    "No."
    We moved ahead at a quicker pace. The smell he had mentioned came to me first as a mere sense of reassurance. Only eventually did I recognize it as pipe tobacco. Name a more heartening aroma!

And just a little fun thing that I gleaned from the book, a connection I made: I watched a tv show focusing on 'mysteries' surrounding artifacts found in different institutions in the US, mostly museums. One episode, which I watched just a night or two ago, was about Salton Sea in California. Here's a portion from the book that I recognized the location before it was actually specified {love when that happens!}:

    Glendon's voice hushed at the word Yuma, of whose ravages he had heard from experienced compadres: the sun beating through latticed ironwork, the brazed manacles set into the stone floor. Viewing the penitentiary from his far hilltop Glendon had no way of knowing it had been shut down years earlier and posed no threat. He crossed the Gila and a short while later the weedy Colorado before veering northwest toward a bank of dunes he knew from long ago. He was in familiar country and so was surprised when a lake appeared shining where there had been only dry and saline earth. The lake was too large to see across, too large to be misplaced. Riding Sparrow along the water's edge he wondered at his memory until an Indian woman emerging from a tilted house informed him the Colorado had breached its banks a decade before and created this new ocean. At its bottom lay the bones of a town named Salton. Glendon had stopped in Salton twenty years before and done a little business in a the saloon- he told the woman so, but she wasn't interested. She hated the lake. It grew more bitter year by year. Glendon rode on.

I would recommend the book but I wouldn't say it's a "don't miss" book.