A sweet, slow tale of love, adventure and friendship in the Wild West
Leif Enger continues to be a delightful teller of tales, continuing his love of the mythic West, when the world was full of adventures, heroes and villains who are not always what they seem. I was blown away by his first novel, Peace Like A River, and waited a long time for this, his second, to appear. The wait has been worth it.
In an age like ours which has little innocence, the story of a time when life moved more slowly, when the land was larger, the days longer and not so frantic with choice, there’s something surprisingly restful and expansive about this story of cowboys and outlaws, of detectives who spend years and years chasing ‘the bad un’ and the strange friendships which can spring up between men who yearn for adventure and the open land as much as they yearn for a quieter life and the love of a good woman.
Enger has what I love to read – warmth and heart. His ‘bad men’ can turn out to have good hearts, decency and generosity. Men (and women) do things in youth which they may regret in age.
His narrator, a one-tale-wonder author, is an excellent person to accompany us on a journey, taking in boats, trains, automobiles and horses, rodeos, movie making, turtles, orange groves and true love.
Now i suppose there may be another 7 year wait while Enger writes number 3. There’s 
something fitting about the slow landscape he describes and his own time taken in writing!
So Brave, Young and Handsome Amazon UK
So Brave, Young and Handsome Amazon USA
I was reminded of this lovely read by a fellow blogger spotting a warm review of the book on yet another blog : so, a couple of Pingbacks, to Fiction Fan who spends a lot of time promoting her fellow bloggers, and did so here with this book and to frayeddustjackets original review
Double ping! equals ping!ping!
