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Leif Enger
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So Brave, Young and Handsome Audio CD – Audiobook, April 22, 2008

by Leif Enger (Author), Dan Woren (Reader)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,165 ratings
Editors' pick Best Literature & Fiction
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One of Time magazine’s top-five novels of the year and a New York Times bestseller, Leif Enger’s first novel, Peace Like a River, captured readers’ hearts around the nation. His new novel is a stunning successor–a touching, nimble, and rugged story of 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, Monte Becket has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives a simple life with his loving wife and whipsmart 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 finally lured him from hiding. As the modern age marches swiftly forward, Glendon aims to travel back into 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–a journey that will test the depth of his loyalties, the inviolability of his morals, and the strength of his resolve. As they 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.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    9 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  4. Publication date
    April 22, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    5.03 x 1.17 x 6.02 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0739369229
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0739369227
  8. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Enger's second novel is a marvelous tale of an unsuccessful writer and an elderly train robber on a cross-country journey to confront past demons. Dan Woren's narration is steadfast and resolute throughout, offering two unique characters each with his own colorful view of the ever-encroaching modern world. While there is little in the way of varying dialects and tones at work, Woren offers believable and realistic protagonists that immediately capture the listener's imagination and holds it until the end.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Leif Enger is the author of Peace Like a River. He was raised in Osakis, Minnesota, and worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio for nearly twenty years. Enger lives in Minnesota with his wife and two sons. Visit his website at www.leif-enger.com.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Audio; Unabridged edition (April 22, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Audio CD ‏ : ‎ 9 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0739369229
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0739369227
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.03 x 1.17 x 6.02 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,165 ratings

About the author

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Leif Enger

Leif Enger

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Leif Enger worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio for nearly twenty years before leaving to write fiction full-time. He lives in Minnesota with his wife Robin.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
1,165 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Adventure With A Writer
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2020
Verified Purchase
Leif Engel is a skilled, perceptive writer as any reader of his novel, Peace Like A River, will attest. The subject of this novel --a one-time successful writer on an apparently random journey west from Minnesota to California with unusual companions--did not really draw me. Remembering the pleasure of Enger's previous novel, however, I got on board and was rewarded by a most rewarding reading experience.

The real value of the novel is not so much the plot featuring a struggling author and family man who takes off on an impetuous journey with an eccentric neighbor who has previous criminal history. The neighbor has become a skilled boat maker so the first part of the journey features water-based adventures. There are also intermittent train escapades and a long journey in an old Packard joined by a young boy companion with cowboy aspirations. The trio become the objects of a quest by a former Pinkerton man who is a a major force in the story, allowing neither a shooting injury nor a stroke to deter him from his quest for justice. As intriguing as the plot, the. appeal of the novel lies iin the author's ability to draw the reader 100% into the unfolding saga.

The climax takes place on a California fruit orchard property owned by a charismatic couple who add depth to the drama. The author's wife and son have joined him and are starting a new life at story's end. One is left wondering if the multitude of experiences during his journey will stimulate the author's literary creativity.

The characters are a unique blend of well recognizable traits despite despite the rough garb of their embodiers. The ever-changing natural scenery emerges as an actor as interesting as the human characters. Floods, fires, heat and cold all play a role in the novel's appeal. The author writes simply but elegantly, creating a fascinating, memorable journey.
6 people found this helpful
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Glynn Young
4.0 out of 5 stars A Story About Storytelling
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2009
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It's inevitable that "So Brave, Young and Handsome" will be compared to Leif Enger's first novel, "Peace Like a River." And that first book, published in 2000, is an incredible story that's received well deserved acclaim.

Yet as much as I liked "Peace Like a River," I liked "So Brave, Young and Handsome" more. In fact, the second novel helped me understand the first novel better - an outcome I wasn't expecting.

It's Minnesota, 1915. Monte Beckett is a writer with a highly successful first novel, a shoot-em-up western, who finds he can't write a second novel. Nothing works. Everything he sends to his publisher is turned down; everything he writes is unsatisfying. And then Glendon Hale comes rowing down the river by Monte's house, and he's rowing while standing up. And Monte's life fundamentally changes.

Eventually, with his wife Susannah's blessing, Monte leaves to accompany Glendon to Mexico, to look for Glendon's first love. Along the way, Monte finds out that Glendon was an outlaw. And he's still being chased down by the authorities.

Like "Peace Like a River," Enger's second novel is about a journey, but also much more than that. He raises subtle questions about the nature of good and evil, and heroes and villains. The reader comes to root for the outlaw and despise the ex-Pinkerton agent chasing him. But what great characters Enger creates in the process!

Ultimately, "So Brave, Young and Handsome" is a story about storytelling - how stories are written and change, how even "factual accounts" are often anything but. And it's a delight to read.
13 people found this helpful
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Michelle K
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2024
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This is an endearing story filled with warmth and lovable characters, but what truly sets Enger's books apart is his writing style. The man has a gift with words. I could read a story he wrote about watching the grass grow. Every sentence is a delight !
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JLValdez
5.0 out of 5 stars This book has spoiled me for any other.
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2023
Verified Purchase
A perfect tale well told. The exciting and surprising story unfolds gently, with delight and effervescence. It coaxed me along with it, inviting - convincing - me to root for scallawags and wish to know them personally. And like the very best books do, caused no small sorrow when the last page is read.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

martin h.
5.0 out of 5 stars What a delightful read!
Reviewed in Canada on June 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
The author, whom I have never read before, weaves a yarn that both delights and intrigues in a down-home, folksy style that is deceptively simple but is, in fact, carefully crafted and finely wrought with a choice of words that interplay like fine threads of an exquisite tapestry. The characters are both quirky and likeable (even the bad guys have their qualities) and while the action is slow-paced it is deliciously absorbing, like a fine meal savoured slowly. I was hooked from the first page until the last and that is everything you want a book to be.

My only challenge with the book was that I found the main character’s weakness and his ability to be totally controlled by the stronger characters around him hard to believe but perhaps that’s just because that’s not the kind of person I am, so trying to understand another’s actions and motivations sometimes needs an open mind. After all, it is total fiction and, in fiction, stories go where they want to go not where we want them to go.
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Mary Jean
3.0 out of 5 stars Good but his first one was great!
Reviewed in Germany on October 14, 2013
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It was a good read but because I read Peace Like a River first, my expectations were high. Still I enjoyed it. There is adventure, a bit of romance, sadness and redemption.
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Lady Fancifull
5.0 out of 5 stars A sweet, slow tale of love, adventure and friendship in the Wild West
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2009
Verified Purchase
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, 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!
One person found this helpful
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Salt Spring Gail
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Western Story
Reviewed in Canada on November 12, 2012
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This book follows "Peace Like a River" but it is a very different story. It stands on its own as a study of Western life and adventure in 1915 America. It follows the travels of a repentant aging train robber and his friends. It's a good story but if you're looking for more of "Peace Like a River" this is not it.
One person found this helpful
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FictionFan
4.0 out of 5 stars The Good, The Bad and The Somewhere-In-Between...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 6, 2013
Verified Purchase
Monte Becket is struggling to follow up the runaway success of his first novel. Money is running short and he's facing up to the fact that he may have to go back to his old job in the Post Office. Glendon Hale abandoned his wife many years ago and now wants to go back to Mexico to find her and apologise. When Glendon asks Monte to accompany him, it seems like a way for Monte to postpone any hard decisions for a while. So with the blessing of his wife Susannah, he agrees to go. Along the way they pick up a third companion, young Hood Roberts, who dreams of the old West and wants to join the Hundred and One rodeo.

The story of a road trip that starts in Minnesota and eventually ends in California is also the story of a trip back in time. Set in 1915, each of the three characters is looking backwards - Monte with his book set in a, for him, imagined world of the old West; Hood, the young motor mechanic, who clings to the romantic idea of being a cowboy in a world that is moving on; and Glendon, the only one of the three with experience of the old days, a former outlaw of the Hole in the Wall era and still wanted for crimes committed years ago. Each of the three is searching for something in the past, and in a sense they each find what they're looking for - but perhaps not as either they or the reader might expect.

Into this mix comes Charlie Siringo, an ex-Pinkerton man, determined to hunt down Glendon for one final blast of glory. Siringo, somewhat oddly, is based on a real Pinkerton agent though, from what I understand, pretty loosely. In the book, he's the legal good guy but the moral bad guy, as the reader's sympathies are very much with the three fugitives. Well, we always did prefer Butch and Sundance to the Sheriff, didn't we?

The book is very well written with a fairly plain prose style that matches well with the story. The plot is secondary to the description of the gradually changing landscape, weather and lifestyle as the men move west, and characterisation is at the heart of the novel. The story is told in the first person from Monte's point of view and through him we see a gradual stripping away of layers as his initial impressions of the other three change.

The tale is a deliberately romanticised one, and really doesn't stand up to a critical eye very well. Monte's behaviour in particular makes no sense at several parts of the story, and the moral flip-flopping of the main characters is a bit unsubtle, leading to a lack of credibility. Siringo in particular becomes increasingly less believable as the book progresses until he ends up almost as a cartoon character. And as Monte drifts along, agonising over his own indecisiveness, I longed for him to discover the spirit of John Wayne or Henry Fonda and show a bit of heroism, or at least some backbone. As a result, the emotional involvement that I felt in the early part of the book had waned considerably by the end. However, the picture of the last days of the old West - or at least the old West as depicted in the cinema Western - is very well done and made this an enjoyable and nostalgic read overall, especially for anyone who fondly remembers the glory days of the cowboy movie.
One person found this helpful
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