A Hollywood pitch might describe this book as Huckleberry Finn meets The Big Fish, Pecos Bill and Canterbury Tales. Like "The Cowboy's Lament," the song quoted in its title, this story took me back to childhood in mid-century Minnesota, where a typical evening might find my brother and me sitting on the floor listening intensely to radio dramas starring Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger.

In 1915, about the time cowboy days are winding down, Monte Becket, a writer without a story, leaves his wife and son to go on an odyssey with Glendon Hale, a criminal and aspiring repentant. Some colorful Wild West characters complicate their search for Blue, the woman Glendon left behind before he became a fugitive. Adventure, danger and coincidences ensue as they make their way from Northfield, Minnesota to southeastern California by train, boat, car, horse and foot.

Leif Enger constructed this novel like Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City," which began as serialized newspaper fiction. Each chapter is only 300-1000 words, so a person with very small increments of time could work this book into a busy schedule or even read it aloud to an older person or a child. I enjoyed the characters, the humor, the philosophy, the story and Enger's prose style that's retro without sounding archaic. It had a great ending that took a little turn with just a few pages to go.