So Brave, Young and Handsome by Leif Enger

After reading Wolf Hall, like a chain smoker I put that book down and immediately picked up So Brave, Young and Handsome, which I'd bought earlier because I'd like Peace Like a River, by the same author. I loved it. Loved it, loved it.

It's very different from Wolf Hall, no historical fiction to it, no list of many characters or family trees, just a great story. In one of her movies, Katherine Hepburn says, "My, she was yar." That's how I felt after reading this book.

The main character is a writer, Monte Becket. He was a postman who wrote a book that became a bestseller so he quite his day job and thought he'd devote himself to writing. His first book was about a pony express rider and Monte Becket loves cowboys. At the beginning of the book he's realizing that he's not going to be able to write another book. He has a wife Susannah and a son Redstart. He can't bear to confess to Susannah that he's unable to write.

He becomes friends with a kind of mysterious man named Glendon Hale who builds beautiful rowboats. Glendon and Monte end up going on an adventure together, meeting up with other great characters including a boy who wants to become a cowboy and an ex-Pinkerton Detective.

I love the story and I love the writing. Here are a few quotes:

"I'm afraid Franco is taciturn." "Well, disappointment comes to us all.")

"You authors, I mean--this world ain't no romance, in case you didn't notice." "So I am discovering," I replied...but now I am taking it back. 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.

"...You were never in jail, I suppose." "Not yet." "Well, it ain't any good. You don't ever wake up and say to yourself, What a pretty day, I feel good today. No," he reflected, "a jail ain't nothing but a collection of corners."

"Of course it's been years, but I doubt forgiveness is the sort of fruit he cultivates."

At this we heard a sharp metallic lurch and Hood roared a string of impolite adjectives. He might even have cried a little. It wasn't his fault. I've looked under a car or two myself, since then--it's bedlam down there, no beginning no end, and a consequence for everything you touch.

That's just from flipping through the first several chapters. I thought the book was enchanting.