Review by Booklist Review
Enger's first novel, Peace like a River (2001), sold more than a million copies, a dizzying amount for fiction. His second effort, unsurprisingly, is a meditation on success. It follows the misadventures of a best-selling author, Monte Becket, who cannot make his second novel work. By setting the story in 1915, Enger offers distance between his experience and Becket's. The strength in Becket's voice comes from a wonderful union of modesty and curiosity. Becket never lingers long on any subject most chapters are only a few pages long and the story moves quickly across an American West that offers cowboys, senoritas, and bandits who are regrettably familiar. Less familiar is Enger's authorial generosity; his willingness to show the good in his creations is not endearing so much as encouraging. Indeed, this alone is enough to spare Enger from the conclusion one of his characters reaches: Why, poor Becket you got no medicine, that's what it is. You used it all up in only the one book. You got no medicine left at all! --Clouther, Kevin Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
An inviting voice guides readers through this expansive saga of redemption in the early 20th-century West and gives a teeming vitality to a period often represented with stock phrases and stock characters. Novelist Monte Becket isn't a terribly distinguished figure; his first and only published work hit five years before the story's start and he is about to reclaim his job at a smalltown Minnesota post office when he meets Glendon Hale, a former outlaw who is traveling to Mexico to find his estranged wife. He persuades Becket to join him, and the two set off on a long journey peopled with sharply carved characters (among them a Pinkerton thug tracking down Glendon) and splendid surprises. As Monte's narration continues, the tale veers away from Monte's artistic struggle and becomes an adventure story. The progress has its listless moments, but Enger crafts scenes so rich you can smell the spilled whiskey and feel the grit. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In 1915, unassuming Monte Becket befriends an outlaw intent on reconciling with his family. With a 25-city tour and reading group guide. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
