Enger's Return

Breezing through the book reviews in the Sunday paper a name drew my attention. It wasn't a book review, rather an article about Leif Enger writing his new book. Enger wrote Peace Like A River, one of my favorites, and his new book is So Brave, Young, and Handsome. And it is already out. How did I not know this?

He will be in Milwaukee on May 8th to read from his new book. I'll be there.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Asked the central philosophy that underscores his fiction, asked if he was religious, Enger said, "I would say that, ah, I value faith a lot. Faith is important to me. Religion--I associate the world with ritual and I'm not very ritualistic. My world-view is a Christian one, so it follows that the things I value in my stories would have to do with sacrifice and atonement and goodness and joy. Particularly joy. I love books that seem as if they were joyfully written. Certainly they would include failure and despair and sadness, but I never feel that those things by themselves are the whole story."