Leif Enger's first novel, PEACE LIKE A RIVER, is one of the most beautiful and moving books written in the last dozen years or so. It's the kind of book that makes you drop to your knees in awe of the talent that created such a literary marvel. I finally got around to reading his second book, and though the same elegant prose, with its' semi-Elizabethan tone, is still in evidence, this time around I'm afraid I didn't believe a word of the book. None of the characters seemed real to me, and it's hard to resist feeling the book is an analogy for Enger's own journey as a writer. This novel tells the story of a young writer in 1915 whose first book, something he wrote without too much intellectualizing, was a huge and unexpected hit (like Enger's own PLAR). His editor presses him for a second novel but everything he starts is dull and lifeless. Feeling he'll never write another book and at a loss as to what to do with himself, the protagonist joins an outlaw his son has befriended in a search across a couple of states to find the wife the outlaw abandoned many years ago. Even after many years in hiding the outlaw is still being pursued by a former Pinkerton, who is determined to capture him and bring him to justice. I found this Pinkerton a singularly unlikeable character and, to be blunt, can't say I cared too much for any of the characters, from the idealized wives to the full of piss-and-vinegar kids, to the milquetoast protagonist. The book really lost me when the Pinkerton made a prisoner out of the milquetoast, a scene that was quite unconvincing. I read the whole book, though, mostly for the pleasure of the singular voice of this author. His prose is superb. I felt he just overthought this novel, that's all. Enger's is a gifted writer and he'd have to write about 10 crummy books in a row (which, given the outstanding qualty of his prose, is impossible) before I'd give up on him.