So Brave, Young, and Handsome

by Leif Enger

K recommended this to me, and I read a little each night for a while. It took me a long time, even though it should have been a quick read, but I enjoyed it. It reminds me in some ways of True Grit, though the characters aren’t as hard. Glen Dobie was a bank robber, now an old man, but still pursued by an old Pinkerton detective named Charles Siringo. Glen meets Monte Becket, author of one successful novel, at a time when Becket can’t seem to produce any new writing that he’s happy with. Becket goes off with Glen on a trip to Mexico to meet Glen’s wife Arandano (aka Blue), who he abandoned years ago, fleeing the law.

“In times of dread, it’s good to have an old man along. An old man has seen worse.” (104)

The word “paloma” means dove. (So does the name Jonah.)

“We hear much about moments of decision, but often you don’t know they have happened until later and there you stand in your cooling skin.” (199) Ain’t that the truth.

Siringo’s reservation in Hell:

On the third day Clary dosed Siringo heavily and went in after the bullet. He located it between the rib it had smashed and the lung it would've pierced otherwise. Waking afterward Siringo told the doctor he had strolled through a deepening valley at the bottom of which he'd glimpsed the gates of Hell -- black as you'd expect with the usual smoke rising in the background. His voice amused, Siringo described an emissary who had come out from the gates dressed in shiny skin like an eel's. The emissary told Siringo they had a room reserved under his name but he wasn't coming in just yet.

Clary said, "I know a preacher in Ponca City. I'll send for him if you like."

"To what point and purpose?" said Charles Siringo.

"Well, in case you wish to make a reservation elsewhere."

"Be an adult, Mr. Clary. It happened in my mind. My own good brain carved out that valley and built those gates; that eel-skin fellow was my own conjuring."

Clary regarded him placidly. "Most men would prefer not to take the chance."

I will say for Siringo that he held to his convictions. Weak from days of fever and pain, he still found the strength to say, "I can't believe I let an idiot probe my guts with a knife." (149)