So Brave, Young, and Handsome

After Monte Becket, a blocked adventure novelist, meets Glendon Hale, a white-haired boat builder, in 1915 Minnesota, he eagerly embarks with him on a jaunt to Mexico — unaware of Hale’s past as a train robber. As they journey via riverboat and battered jalopy, they’re pursued by a hard-bitten bounty hunter with a brutal handshake. Like that jalopy, Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome lurches forward fitfully but ultimately uncorks enough surprises and vivid characters (like a handsome blond desperado and a female sharpshooter) for a bumpy but satisfying ride in . B