Highlights of the Action

What are the highlights? Third-century Roman Britain. A red dragon sleeping under a Welsh mountain. A Christian awakening spreading through the island that the dragon finds deeply inconvenient. And a team sent from Antioch—led by Amal, the Shadow King—to do something about it.

They’re joined by Finn McCool and they briefly meet Taliesin. Yes, those two. One is an immortal Celtic warrior who has been fighting supernatural evil longer than most civilizations have existed. The other is a blind former druid who serves a different master now and carries scars from the last time he tried to face the dragon alone.

The early Christians in this story didn’t survive Roman persecution by being cautious people. They survived by being stubborn, brave, and entirely convinced that the darkness was going to lose eventually. A primordial dragon will test conviction in a cavern deep beneath Mount Snowdonia.

Mythical Celtic Setting

Britannia Calls is historical fiction rooted in the third century AD—a few years before the reign of Emperor Constantine. The narrative swims in early Celtic Christianity, and the pre-Roman mythological traditions of Ireland and Wales. The supernatural elements—dragons, Pattern-sight, binding rituals drawn from Hebrew and druidic traditions—are built on that historical and literary foundation, not cartoons layered on top of it.

If you’ve read The Apprentice or Into Deeper Waters, you already know Amal. If this is your first encounter with the series, Britannia Calls works as an entry point. The format keeps it focused—one mission, one mountain, one ancient enemy.

What’s Next?

I’m already thinking about the next project. Another Old Testament prophet, most likely. Different era, different landscape, same fundamental conflict: someone who has been given a gift they didn’t ask for and a task they’d prefer to refuse. He won’t know what hit him.

HOW TO PURCHASE THE BOOK!

Find Britannia Calls on Amazon (Kindle only): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GS3PDF8R

Paperback is available exclusively on my web store here at todnewman.com!

Other LINKS about this Novel

Q&A with the Author

Reviews of the First Book in this Series

Early article “hyping” this book!

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A Story of Memory and Loss

Berry’s latest novel, Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story, reinforces my sense of loss of the past because Berry spends much time dwelling in that place. The story is about his frequent narrator, Andy Catlett, reminiscing over his grandfather Marce, who managed his family farm behind a brace of mules and a plow. The action starts with a distant event when the tobacco buyers monopoly, the American Tobacco Company, uses their leverage to essentially rob Marce of a full year of labor—not just any labor, but one that was needed to provide a source of scarce income that could augment what the farm itself could offer to Marce’s family.

Andy only knew of this sad story from hearsay, and admits:

So Marce remembered it to Wheeler, who told it to Andy, who in a world radically changed needed a long time and great care to imagine what he heard, but as he has imagined it he has passed it on to his children, for the story has been, as it is still, a force and a light in their place. (p. 17)

The Cost of Progress

One of the familiar complaints made by Berry is that progress in the form of tractors, automobiles, and cross-national linkages of trains changed outcomes for ordinary families who made lives from the soil. Marce sums up his beliefs about progress in describing his journey to Louisville on a train as only a man who was a master of his own work and place could:

They felt in their flesh the ruled line by which the railroad had pierced the living country, subduing its ancient contours to levels and slants and bends required by the machines that ever after would hurry regardlessly across it. (p. 19)

The Black Sheep and the Beloved Past

One well-worn thread through Berry’s books—especially the ones with Andy Catlett as narrator—is that of the “black sheep” that occasionally rose up in these families and found their way in the community. In Andy’s case, this beloved person was his uncle, an attractive rebel of sorts who always wound up involved in schemes and activities that embarrassed those who loved him. As Andy described his Uncle Andrew, “He was instead one in the sequence of feral offshoots that fairly regularly had dissented from it. He was not an outcast, because he had never been cast out.” (p. 57)

In this book, and indeed in many where Andy is the narrator, he is looking back on the past through an old man’s eyes. He recognizes that life has blessed him and that when younger he took it for granted. About this life, he notes that “He did not know how old it was or what it was worth or how threatened it had come to be. He did not begin consciously to honor and love it until he saw it going away.” (p. 68)

Eventually, after a successful period in the “big agriculture” world outside Port William, Andy returns home and regards the life his grandfather lived as his own native culture, one “shared and practiced in common by all the kinds and races of the country people, a possession of incalculable worth.” (p. 68)

A Hybrid Work

There is nothing surprising in this book for a fan of Wendell Berry. What is unique, however, is the mating of Berry’s agrarian thought with the story of one of his characters. This makes this novel a halfway creation between Berry’s fiction and nonfiction writing. It isn’t as captivating as, say, his story-driven novel Hannah Coulter, but it contains much deep thought that the reader who avoids nonfiction might be surprised to learn.

The sadness around the demise of places with history born in love like Port William is palpable. Berry sagely notes that “Port William’s fatal mistake was its failure to value itself at the rate of its affection for itself.” (p. 110) He continues to describe that rather, the town had believed the values imputed on their small place by outsiders who saw progress as a 180-degree path away from the Port Williams of the world.

Who Is My Neighbor?

In the Bible, a lawyer asks a question of Jesus that is logical for one who lives in an elevated place in a community: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus takes the chance to show the lawyer the extent of his disconnectedness from life and love. In all of Wendell Berry’s books, this question whispers throughout the stories.

In Marce Catlett, we get a very clear declaration:

In stable and lasting communities, people become neighbors to one another because they need one another. The American story so far—which has been so far the Catletts’ story, which they have both suffered and resisted—has been the fairly continuous overpowering of the instinctive desire for settling and homemaking by the forces of unsettling: the westward movement, land greed, money hunger, false economy. The industrial replacement of neighborhood by competition and technology moves everything worthy of love out of reach. (p. 112)

A Vision of the Beautiful Land

Near the close, Andy’s memories of community, family, and neighbors have connected and are now one recollection:

His remembering and his thoughts have carried him by now far outside the matter of fact of this world’s present age. He stands now with his father and his father’s father, and with others dear to them, in the presence of a longed-for beautiful land that they have desired as if seen afar, that yet is the same, the very land that they have known and that they know, a love-made land, dark to them until by their own love they came to see it. (p. 144)

The reader is left uncomfortably wondering if in our new age of progress, this ascendancy of life is any longer possible.

Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story is a meditation on memory, community, and the cost of what we call progress—essential reading for those who long for something beyond efficiency and growth.

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Michael F. Kane takes a different approach in his series beginning with After Moses—and it’s refreshing.

Kane clearly draws inspiration from Herbert. His chapters open with quotes from historical figures within his universe, and his stories unfold across a colonized solar system. But instead of exhaustive explanations, Kane uses a brilliant narrative shortcut: an AI named Moses once arose, solved humanity’s greatest challenges, and then vanished without a trace. Hence the title—everything happens “After Moses.”

This device liberates Kane’s storytelling. How do humans live on Ganymede? Moses invented gravity plates and environmental barriers. It’s reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez’s magical realism—the extraordinary simply exists, everyone accepts it, and life continues.

With technology explained away, Kane focuses on what matters most: character development.

Each chapter tells a self-contained story where characters face captivating challenges. The situations often seem dire, yet Kane’s light touch keeps readers from feeling overwhelmed. You trust these characters are equal to their trials. As the chapters accumulate, a larger narrative emerges, revealing the characters’ backstories and interconnections. And always, the central mystery lingers: Who was Moses, and what happened to him?

Kane’s writing style will feel familiar to fans of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide series. He has that same gift for witty banter and knows how to make you smile while telling a serious story. I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

If you’re searching for a new sci-fi author—especially one who writes honest stories about characters overcoming struggles with moral integrity—visit michaelfkane.com to purchase the series. Kane is an independent author well worth discovering.

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In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the unimaginable has happened, perhaps across the whole earth. The reader learns of this through the eyes of a man (the Man) and his son (the Boy), and what McCarthy tells us through these two characters’ senses is stark. As with King David, who spent large portions of his life fleeing those who would take it, the characters are beset at every step—scavenging for the ever-more-unlikely can of food through abject danger from those who have learned to place all things below their own survival. Slavery, murder, and cannibalism are the tools the remaining few on Earth have learned to boost this urge to survive at the expense of all others.

But yet, there remains a banner of goodness, of hope, of God that barely remains. The reader frequently descends into disillusionment. Is this what might happen if human kindness descends fully into self-centeredness? McCarthy’s gritty prose sets the temperature of the novel throughout. Sparing with words, neglectful of polite punctuation, he serves up the most basic elements of a collapsed society. But still there are two who continue to hold the “fire” inside.

A Father’s Divine Charter

The Man—though he is one of the few survivors of the cataclysmic events that have destroyed most of the world’s flora and fauna—has a charter. He sees this as a gift from the God who has taken literally everything else away. Early in the novel as he scans the terrain for threats to his day’s journey down the cracking and bubbling interstate to the coast, he ponders this unclear but divine call.

“He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.” (p. 3)

The descriptions of this fallen world abound. I have a hard time imagining any author other than McCarthy being able to communicate something so unthinkable to our expectations of excess.

“The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone.” (p. 10)

Or the tyranny of needing to search for food in forsaken places that have been multiply ravaged by bands of nihilistic scavengers:

“In the morning they went on. Desolate country. A boar-hide nailed to a barndoor. Ratty. Wisp of a tail. Inside the barn three bodies hanging from the rafters, dried and dusty among the wan slats of light. There could be something here, the boy said. There could be some corn or something. Let’s go, the man said.” (p. 16)

Of the sadness of what has been lost, the reader is given this to experience as the Man inspects the fireplace of an abandoned family home for anything that may assist his survival:

“He felt with his thumb in the painted wood of the mantle the pinholes from tacks that had held stockings forty years ago.” (p. 25)

Mastery and Purposeful Protection

Notable is the absolute mastery of the small, important things of the world that the Man has been able to demonstrate. McCarthy uses this, perhaps, as a foil to demonstrate how even the most competent and experienced can be beset by an evil world. Thinking here about King David in the wilderness. The Man knows how to survive. How did he learn this? Through good preparation before the disasters occurred? Through hard effort and good fortune afterwards? This remains unclear to the reader at the end of the novel, but what is made certain is that the Man has “the fire” to refuse to allow the evil to take him before he can develop his son into a Man who can survive the new reality. This book gives the reader much pause on the difficulties of the intentional protection and development of others.

Hints of Hope

The careful reader will seek out the hints that McCarthy provides of the persistence of the human spirit. They are few and can be missed. The Man takes some roadside cane and makes his son a flute as a distraction:

“The boy took it wordlessly. After a while he fell back and after a while the man could hear him playing. A formless music for the age to come. Or perhaps the last music on earth called up from out of the ashes of its ruin.” (p. 81)

And as the Boy struggles with the painfulness of his existence and his desire to take a blissful-appearing death—like his mother had quietly done:

“You can’t. You have to carry the fire.” (p. 298)

The Real Story

Though this book won a Pulitzer Prize, many reviewers have chosen to wallow in the meaninglessness that McCarthy is able to weave while describing an utterly fallen world. Even Haiti in 2026 has not yet fallen nearly as far. I’ll admit that it is a true challenge to see through all the depressing atmosphere.

But the real story of the novel is McCarthy’s knowledge that even in the worst possible case for humanity, hope will somehow survive. Some of the very last words are spoken in hope about the Boy (and perhaps others like him yet to be met):

“The breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time.” (p. 306)

The Road is well worth reading, even by more sensitive people. It speaks of preparedness, resilience, and the humanity of passionately holding to hope, even when the senses scream that hope has been destroyed and placed in its grave. Because then the spark is lit and who is to say what God will do with it.

Have you read The Road? What did you discover about hope in the darkest places? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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But then in a conversation with her sister, Lucy (the youngest) offers this steadying moment: “I wouldn’t have felt very safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we’d met them without Aslan.” And thus we see the redeeming of the recklessness that we perceive into blessed joy.

Paul Scott Grill’s novel Travel by Star is clearly influenced by many of the works that my writing is also touched by. The Narnia series, Tolkien, Pilgrim’s Progress, and even Louis L’Amour appear to be prominent. This makes for a read that is personally quite thrilling.

Note that Mr. Grill is a current author who has chosen the independent publishing path. This approach frees one from the conforming biases of the publishing industry and allows full creative control. Unfortunately, it also may discourage the buying public who sees the independently published novel as potentially lesser. I tend to feel the opposite way.

This is why I will be buying and reviewing (unbeknownst to the author) independent novels here on my site from time to time. I hope this will be a positive deviation from my traditional Classics reviews. Perhaps it will be helpful to both authors and readers who want better content not influenced by “the industry”. Back to the review.

Western Grit Meets Magical Wonder

In places, we see the western stability and rugged individualism characteristic of L’Amour and we garner a notion about the type of book this is. But then the magic and joy of Grill’s world building erupts out of nowhere and takes the reader into an exciting new place for a short while. Once control is regained, we resume the main story—or is it the main story? We don’t know for sure because the author maintains suspense for quite a long time.

Three characters garner the majority of the love from Grill. The main Clint Eastwood plains drifter (or plains Runner as the book describes him) is named Travel. Early on he meets a challenging and powerful young woman named Nichole who has a mission she needs Travel’s attendance to. He has various beliefs about what this mission is, and even though he’s initially reluctant (of course, the heroic journey is featured here as with many of the best novels), eventually he becomes invested, though he still is mistaken about the purpose. Nichole is compelling and surprising throughout, but Travel begins to truly care for her. We learn a truth about Travel and Nichole fairly early on:

“Nichole lived in a haunted world, as did Travel, as did everyone else. It was a world where nothing beautiful could ever rise up without something coming for it.” (p. 102)

This is excellent foreshadowing, but as with heroes in our own real world, neither of these two is affected by these challenges, constantly adapting and seeking to overcome.

My favorite character is perhaps more of a mighty supporting character, a “protector” named Hatchet who is also far more than he appears. What I appreciate about this character is the clothing in humility and grace Grill provides him that enables him to serve and regard the other characters in the novel far higher than himself.

Magical Realism Done Well

Magical realism is featured throughout, often in surprising ways. As with García Márquez, the best examples of this are short and never get fully resolved in the book. This lends these moments a great amount of interest.

Hope as Our Sure Possession

My opinion on the main theme in the novel is that it continually returns to hope. For example, much of the story revolves around searching for a majestic city (à la the Celestial City from Pilgrim’s Progress). Travel isn’t so sure at the beginning of the book, but we learn his thoughts and get insight into his character:

“Travel shrugged. ‘I believe there was once a city, and I’m sure it had its day.’ He paused, and the watchfulness returned. ‘But I don’t believe anything can sustain that kind of hope.'” (p. 86)

I highlighted the theme of hope throughout my Kindle edition of this novel. One phrase that is repeated by many characters is initially thrown out as a surety by Hatchett: “Hope is our sure possession.” How much do we need to hear this in our own era where we have sacrificed hope to the mere tangible? It is food for much thought.

There are many smaller characters like Nivenna who pursue this hope through strenuous and systematic sacrificial investment in the advancement of others. We learn that Nivenna is training groups of young women to become anchors in the community. Grill writes:

“For in addition to the well-known work and provision of their land, there was a quiet, lesser-known work that also sustained the town, whereby these four women took in wayward girls and taught them how to set their sights on something more than the day after. Here, they learned to read, to make plans, to keep a schedule, to garden and cook, to care for animals, to care for people, to stretch a coin and mend a seam and close a wound. These were Occam’s Daughters, and they did more to keep the town from descending into a brothel-pocked ruin than most would ever know. It was dangerous work.” (p. 153)

Those who love horses (like me) will also enjoy this book, for there is a race of horses that are higher and more noble. Perhaps these horses even aspire to the Greek legends of Pegasus, the winged symbol of divine inspiration. What is certain is that they are critical partners to the human teams seeking the blessed city in full hope.

The Journey’s End—and Beginning

Near the end of the book, Travel reaches the City. But has he? He is uncertain, for he detects some adjacent injustice. He meets an important character in a dingy room who addresses the whole issue about the City and the remnants of evil:

“Do not fear him,” he said. “As for you…” he stopped for a moment, and it seemed then that he looked past Travel, at something the horsemaster could neither hear nor see. The Man smiled briefly then returned his gaze. “Did you think I could bring you all the way here, and not finish what I’ve begun?” he asked. (p. 603)

With this advice, Travel moves forward confidently and hopefully into his new life’s work, no longer unaware of who he is and who he is serving.

Travel by Star is an enjoyable read that will alternately leave your head spinning and then focus your attention on the reality that underlies and sustains all of the many symbols that Grill sneaks past our attention.

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The Story

The story follows Edward Waverley, a young English nobleman who becomes entangled in the Jacobite uprising of 1745—the doomed conspiracy to restore the Stuart dynasty to the English throne. Scott drew upon his Scottish heritage and conducted meticulous research and local interviews to capture the Highland culture with impressive authenticity. His descriptive prose brought the fierce loyalty and poetic passion of the Highland clans to life, creating scenes that in retrospect bear striking resemblance to James Fenimore Cooper’s later portraits of Native American tribes. Given Cooper’s known admiration for English novels, one wonders if the young American author found inspiration in Scott’s Highlanders when crafting his own tales of upstate New York’s indigenous peoples.

At its heart, Waverley traces the maturation of an idle young man of privilege who seeks purpose through an Army commission, only to find himself plunged into the full spectrum of human experience: treachery and self-sacrifice, unexpected kindness and passionate infatuation, and ultimately, genuine love.

The Characters!

The novel’s strength lies in its memorable characters—ironically, everyone except Waverley himself, who proves the least compelling figure in his own story. The Baron of Bradwardine, a Scottish lowlander and Stuart loyalist, embodies the old feudal order with his antiquated sense of lordship and love of shifting conversations to Latin. His daughter Rose emerges as a surprisingly strong and capable woman who quietly shapes the story’s resolution. The Highland chieftain Fergus Mac-Ivor offers Edward genuine friendship while drawing him deeper into rebellion, while Fergus’s sister Flora—passionate for Stuart glory—reveals that her interest in Edward stems more from political calculation than romance. The erratic thief Donald Bean Lean rounds out a cast that captures the full range of Highland passion and intrigue.

Edward’s gradual awakening forms the novel’s emotional core. He discovers too late that Flora views him merely as a political asset for Prince Charles Stuart, who desperately needs English nobles to legitimize his cause. After early rebel successes give way to inevitable defeat, Edward must find his way back to his family and to the woman who protected him and loved him without calculation.

A Message for Our Time

Scott illuminates an era of political turmoil where religion and geography fractured the British Isles—a situation uncomfortably familiar to our own age of polarization. Then as now, political gamesmanship drew people into dangerous conflicts over grievances both real and manufactured. Waverley represents the privileged young man caught between warring forces through no real fault beyond his failure to take his responsibilities seriously. And like our own time, countless people suffered for decisions made in rooms they could never access.

Waverley reminds us that political upheaval has always carried human costs, and that maturity often arrives through painful lessons about loyalty, love, and the true meaning of duty.

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The Characters

As with all of Eliot’s work, character building and contrast take center stage. Four fascinating personalities orbit around Daniel Deronda, who serves as the linchpin connecting them all.

Daniel Deronda is a young man who has grown up as the unacknowledged son—he suspects—of an English aristocrat. He stands apart: patient with people’s idiosyncrasies, thoughtful, and devoted to others. His main foil is Gwendolen Harleth, a character to whom much has been given and who has received it all in great self-devotion. Eliot spends considerable energy convincing us that Gwendolen is shallow and conceited:

Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of, and to have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in which no will was present. It was not to be so with her; she would no longer be sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would make the very best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer circumstances by her exceptional cleverness.

Gwendolen clearly sees herself as “the main character”—as our young people might say about our modern royalty of self-centeredness—with everyone else mere supporting players in her drama.

Two Intersecting Stories

Deronda meets Gwendolen at the peak of her social success, just before she loses her fortune overnight. That brief encounter stays with her through the ups and downs that follow, including a miserable marriage of convenience to a weak but manipulative British aristocrat. Watching Deronda’s visible kindness and encouragement—qualities she utterly lacks—she begins to recognize virtue outside herself. This recognition is perhaps the best thing we can say about Gwendolen.

But the novel’s other pillar tells a strikingly different story. The jarring contrast between Gwendolen’s self-absorption and the selflessness on this second side seems intentional. This strand involves Jewish people—folks segregated from polite British society.

Deronda saves the life of Mirah, a beautiful and talented young Jewish woman who despairs over her lost family. A singer exploited by her scoundrel father across Europe, she escapes to Britain where Deronda rescues her and provides a new family. Though Christian, they are kind, and Eliot uses them to explore the nature of Jewishness in British society.

While searching for Mirah’s missing mother and brother, Deronda meets Mordecai—a deathly-ill but vividly alive Jewish mystic and Kabbalah student. Daniel finds him remarkable, though he’s puzzled by Mordecai’s disappointment that he speaks no Hebrew. Increasingly, Deronda’s thoughts shift from his aristocratic life toward this unusual man and his urgent vision.

Transformation and Vision

Mirah flourishes in the home of Deronda’s college friend, where his mother and sisters adore her. She becomes a blessing, teaching singing to wealthy students. Gwendolen is drawn to her—perhaps due to Mirah’s character, but likely because of her connection to Deronda.

In one pivotal exchange, Gwendolen reveals her understanding that Deronda admires Mirah’s blamelessness while surely despising her own mercenary marriage. But Deronda sees deeper—that Gwendolen’s real problem is her extreme self-centeredness:

“Then tell me what better I can do,” said Gwendolen, insistently.

“Many things. Look on other lives besides your own. See what their troubles are, and how they are borne. Try to care about something in this vast world besides the gratification of small selfish desires. Try to care for what is best in thought and action—something that is good apart from the accidents of your own lot.”

This exchange gives her food for thought for years.

Meanwhile, Mordecai reveals that he’s seen Deronda in visions as a kindred spirit who will continue his work for the Jewish people after his death. Though puzzled, Deronda feels an inexplicable empathy for the plight of British Jews. In a powerful pub discussion with Mordecai and his philosopher friends, Deronda is stirred by Mordecai’s fervent dream of a Jewish homeland:

Let the torch of visible community be lit! Let the reason of Israel disclose itself in a great outward deed, and let there be another great migration, another choosing of Israel to be a nationality whose members may still stretch to the ends of the earth, even as the sons of England and Germany, whom enterprise carries afar, but who still have a national hearth and a tribunal of national opinion.

After further plot twists, Deronda realizes his calling is now intertwined with Mordecai’s vision. The novel makes an abrupt decision to sunset Gwendolen’s story, which dissipates predictably.

Historical Impact

I’m deliberately avoiding plot spoilers—read it yourself for those details. What fascinates me is this book’s influence on world events. Written in 1876, Daniel Deronda was one of the first exposures polite society had to Jewish suffering and the dream of returning to a homeland.

Many readers actually hated the Jewish plotline, preferring Gwendolen’s aristocratic drama instead. Her recklessness and pride fascinate like a car wreck. But Eliot revolutionized the portrayal of Jewish people in English literature and set events in motion that—regardless of how one views them—have shaped much of world history since.

Fifty-one years after publication, the British issued their support for establishing a Jewish state in the Middle East. Historian Paul Johnson noted in History of the Jews that Daniel Deronda was “probably the most influential novel of the 19th century” and that “to hundreds of thousands of assimilated Jews the story presented for the first time the possibility of a return to Zion.”

A Word on Reading This Novel

This is an important work that should be read. But readers need to know it will challenge our iPhone-depleted attention spans. The writing bears no resemblance to the staccato dialogue patterns of modern novels. Paragraphs stretch on. Dialogue is rich in detail and insight but long in words. Occasionally Eliot dives into reveries the reader struggles to follow. As a writer and student of the classics, I understand her efforts to communicate deeply, though I generally (sadly?) choose to edit such episodes from my own work in response to modern reading fashions.

I hope potential readers are challenged by this but not dissuaded. I’ll say it again: this is an important book. And it also makes the case that people aren’t always completely reducible to groups. A woman from a Caucasian British background was able to communicate the thoughts and desires of an underprivileged minority group with a very lasting effect. In this sense, Daniel Deronda fulfills the highest goals of a novelist—carefully and graciously stepping into another’s life and earning the right to tell someone else’s story.

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Legend has it that Rasselas was written by Johnson in a single week because he needed money for his mother’s funeral. Other legends say that Johnson wrote the book rather than spend time with his dying mother. In some ways, for certain, it does feel like a book written in a week—but by someone who had thought very hard for much of his life about the themes within it. Published in 1759, it was regarded as an important work of philosophy in its day. It reminds me of Voltaire in quite a few places (but is less funny).

The Story

This is the tale of a prince (and his siblings) whom the King of Abyssinia confines to an idyllic but inescapable valley (The Happy Valley) for his protection. The idea is that the King will summon him if needed. Rasselas is perhaps the least vapid of these royal children and begins questioning the seeming perfection around him. Imlac, a poet who has vividly experienced life and the world and was selected to entertain the royals in this secret valley, becomes Rasselas’ confidant.

Through Imlac, we begin to see the depth of Johnson’s thinking. When the prince expresses perplexity that someone in the “real” world would harm another person without any real benefit to himself, Imlac explains:

“Pride is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of others.” (p. 34)

Thus begins the real education of Rasselas, though he is continually quite surprised to learn how people act outside his pleasant prison.

The Search for Happiness

Eventually, Rasselas—with help from Imlac and his sister, Princess Nekayah—escapes and enters the world. Fortunately, Imlac is able to sell wealth the prince can claim, so they’re all accepted in society as wealthy merchants. Rasselas’s goal is to discover how true happiness can be found. When Imlac reveals that “Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little is to be enjoyed,” Rasselas responds:

“I am not yet willing to suppose that happiness is so parsimoniously distributed to mortals; nor can I believe but that, if I had the choice of life, I should be able to fill every day with pleasure. I would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment; I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude.” (p. 43)

This exchange encapsulates one of the book’s central themes. Rasselas is hopelessly naive, and though he has been well educated, he is strangely ignorant. Perhaps this is the case for many who have received great amounts of education and been content with what they learned.

Imlac continues to work vigorously to enlighten his young charge, as we see in this advice about overthinking hopes and fears:

“Do not disturb your mind with other hopes or fears than reason may suggest: if you are pleased with prognostics of good, you will be terrified likewise with tokens of evil, and your whole life will be a prey to superstition.” (pp. 49-50)

The Journey Through Life

Rasselas seeks out a wide range of people representing the variability of human experience. At each turn, he quickly assumes that this culture or community has found true happiness, only to learn from Imlac’s observations: “Believe me, prince, there was not one who did not dread the moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of reflection” (p. 57), or “Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own” (p. 58).

This pattern continues for quite a while, with Rasselas examining the happiness of monks, philosophers, the highly educated, and even a scientist whose deep study has convinced him that he controls the weather and perhaps even the functioning of the world.

Johnson’s Philosophy

Johnson’s melancholy view of the world is evident throughout, for Rasselas’ search remains unsatisfied. Though he is exposed to a great amount of wisdom, he does not find “optimal” happiness anywhere. The modern reader is easily reminded of many fellow travelers searching for their “best” lives while refusing to be patient or content with the life given them—or at minimum, the life within their ability to reach.

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia is a philosophical meditation disguised as a travel narrative, and while it may feel hastily written in places, Johnson’s lifetime of contemplation shines through in every conversation and observation. It’s a timeless exploration of human discontent and the elusive nature of happiness.

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The Story

Monte Becket, a former postal worker, struck gold with his first novel—a dimestore western that found success with an undemanding audience. But lightning hasn’t struck twice. Despite his best efforts, he can’t interest his publisher in anything new. Fortunately, royalties from that first book continue to trickle in, allowing him to buy a pleasant home by the river and live a peaceful life.

It’s there that Monte meets Glendon Hale, a fascinating stranger sailing a homemade boat downriver. Enger describes Glendon as “formal in the way of men grown apart, yet energy teemed behind his eyes and in some ways he seemed a boy himself” (p. 11). This intriguing man quickly captivates not just Monte, but his wife Susannah and young son as well.

Meanwhile, Monte is hiding his latest of many literary failures from his family. His heroic cowboy character, Dan Roscoe, has been abandoned. His new pirate novel is already showing “signs of decay” at just forty pages (p. 22).

Then comes an unlikely invitation: Glendon asks Monte to accompany him to Mexico so he can apologize to the wife he suddenly abandoned in his youth. Despite the apparent foolishness of such a journey, Susannah somehow knows that Monte needs this adventure and encourages him to go.

The Journey

What follows is a winding odyssey by boat, train, car, and train again—sometimes making little logical sense. The journey grows more complicated when we learn that Glendon has quite a past: he was once part of the infamous “Hole in the Wall” gang in Wyoming, alongside Butch Cassidy.

At times, you want to shout at Monte to just go home, for God’s sake. But something keeps him going—perhaps the fear of returning to his failures, or recognition that this strange pursuit is exactly what his soul needs. As Monte humbly observes: “I was used to resembling what I was—a well-meaning failure, a pallid disappointer of persons, a man fading” (p. 76).

Complicating matters further is Charlie Siringo, a rascally Pinkerton detective (and fellow author) devoted to capturing Glendon. (Fans of Larry McMurtry’s Streets of Laredo will recognize Siringo’s name—Captain Woodrow Call dismissed his book as “mostly yarns.”)

What Works

The writing is beautiful, echoing the lyrical style of Peace Like a River. Enger has a remarkable gift for seeing truth in his characters without being put off by their surface flaws.

On an enthusiastic and capable young man who lies to save Glendon from Siringo: “Hood was the purest liar I ever knew. He lied for profit as many do but he also lied for joy, which is less common—it may even be he lied for beauty, by some deeply buried rationale” (p. 96).

On an aging circus sharpshooter with a wild past: When Monte suggests she should “start thinking about her next act,” Glendon wisely responds, “Maybe she’s tried that, Monte. Maybe she don’t have a next act in her” (p. 115).

This small selection of a great many moments of insight are where Enger truly shines.

What Falls Short

While the prose remains gorgeous, the characters don’t quite achieve the luminous quality of those in Peace Like a River. Enger’s penchant for foreshadowing continues, but he’s largely abandoned the magical realism that gave his first novel such distinctive charm. Monte’s many choices to dive deeper into the madness taking him further from Susannah seem quite far-fetched.

The Resolution

Eventually, we see resolution for Siringo, Glendon, and Monte. Monte finally admits to Susannah that his writing days may be finished, humbly confessing “I am very much less than I once believed.” But Susannah shows him extraordinary grace—she was simply waiting for him to find his place.

In one of the book’s most moving passages, Monte reflects on his transformation:

“You are also different,” she said. I didn’t try to explain that. You can’t explain grace, anyway, especially when it arrives almost despite yourself. I didn’t even ask for it, yet somehow it breached and began to work. I suppose grace was pouring over Glendon, who had sought it so hard, and some spilled down on me. Susannah said, “You seemed afraid before you left. Now you don’t—that’s what I think.” (p. 271)

Final Verdict

So Brave, Young, and Handsome is a thoughtful meditation on failure, grace, and redemption. While it may not surpass Enger’s debut, it’s still a rewarding read that showcases his considerable talents as a storyteller. Recommended for fans of literary westerns and anyone who appreciates beautiful prose in service of meaningful themes.

Rating: 4/5 stars

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As a writer myself, I must admit that reading this book fills me with both inspiration and a touch of envy for my own inability to craft a story of such depth and beauty.

The Story and Its Heart

Reuben Land serves as our narrator and, as it turns out, embodies the very soul of the story. His life begins with a miracle: born nearly dead, he survives only when his father Jeremiah holds the “clay child wrapped in a canvas coat” and commands in a steady voice, “Reuben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe.”

Breathe Reuben does, but throughout the story he never breathes easily, severely hampered by asthma. His father Jeremiah becomes his hero, and as Reuben notes with characteristic insight: “there’s nothing as lovely and tragic as telling your friends you were just about dead once.”

Miracles Woven into Reality

Miracles occur throughout this novel in ways that seem deceptively simple and completely believable. This brings Gabriel García Márquez to mind, but Enger’s magical realism springs from the Gospel and prayer rather than from magic. These extraordinary events arrive in ways our postmodern minds can accept without question. As Enger reminds us: “Such things are worth our notice every day of the week, but to call them miracles evaporates the strength of the word.”

Characters Grounded in Grace and Truth

The characters populating this novel are strong prairie stock who never seek to impress or manipulate. The Methodist pastor, faithful and loyal, “was a great advocate of forgiveness, in which he put a lot of stock. Thrilling he was not.” Throughout the story, we detect a common thread of grace and truth—elements that cannot be easily separated from one another. Reuben’s precocious younger sister Swede, already an incredible wordsmith and writer, observes that “once torched by truth, a little thing like faith is easy.”

The Central Conflict

The Land family faces a bitter crisis created by their eldest son, Davy—incredibly capable but seemingly bereft of grace, his tragic, truth-seeking act of revenge poisons their lives. Jeremiah leaves his job and takes the family west in an inherited Airstream trailer, hoping to find Davy and, hopefully, bring him to repentance.

Davy’s fundamental problem becomes clear: “Davy wanted life to be something you did on your own; the whole idea of a protective, fatherly God annoyed him. I would understand this better in years to come but never subscribe to it, for I was weak and knew it.”

This confident self-reliance leads Davy through increasingly dangerous circumstances. His competence provides some protection, but forces him to live as a fugitive. The central question becomes: Will Davy ever accept grace?

The Journey West

Meanwhile, others who deserve nothing good experience mercy through Jeremiah’s hands. When the evil school superintendent who despises Jeremiah receives miraculous healing from horrible facial sores through Jeremiah’s gracious touch, Reuben struggles mightily with the apparent unfairness: “It was the fact that Chester the Fester, the worst man I’d ever seen… got a whole new face to look out of and didn’t even know to be grateful; while I, my father’s son, had to be still and resolute and breathe steam to stay alive.”

This gives us insight into Reuben’s heart—his breathing struggles dominate his existence and serve as an overarching metaphor for his spiritual condition, though he doesn’t understand this until much later.

Finding Refuge and Family

The Land family (Jeremiah, Reuben, and Swede) eventually reach the badlands of North Dakota, their Plymouth limping along while towing the Airstream. A powerful hand seems to guide them—one that communicates frequently and effectively with Jeremiah. Great miracles occur, perhaps the greatest being their forced refuge during a massive snowstorm in the home of Roxanna, a lonely woman on the wilderness fringe.

Roxanna experiences transformation through Jeremiah’s presence, and the children quickly see in her the mother they lost when their own inexplicably abandoned them. Though Davy remains at large, the family experiences stability and learns to find peace in the joy of order and purpose.

The Crisis of Faith

But eventually, Reuben reaches a dreadful realization: “Since arriving at this house, we’d had no miracles whatever.” He reflects on their journey and concludes: “And I thought, Without a miracle, exactly what chance do I have?”

Here readers realize that Reuben views miracles as cheat codes for his own life, failing to see how they’re actually preparing him to live and see differently.

Growth and Understanding

Reuben slowly learns to value prayer, growing into his father’s example, and realizes his need for repentance regarding harbored hatreds. Through painful circumstances of his own making, he confronts his serious shortcomings. A local sheriff “earnestly told me five or six specific things he found discouraging about my character. If you don’t mind I’d rather not restate them, but they were by and large true… I agreed with them all, as the broken must.”

Eventually, Reuben stops “whining about what’s fair, begging forgiveness, hoping for a miracle—these demand energy, and that was gone from me. Contentment on the other hand demands little, and I drew more and more into its circle.”

At last, Reuben learns that “fair is whatever God wants to do.”

A Powerful Conclusion

The story’s ending proves wonderful, featuring a powerful twist reminiscent of great self-sacrifice tales from literature’s past. Without spoiling the conclusion, I’ll say that in the distant years following these dramatic events, we see Reuben explaining to his still-elusive brother Davy what their father had done for him. When Davy challenges him to “Breathe… Let’s see you breathe,” we realize the incredible distance Reuben has traveled.

Despite experiencing great physical damage and displaying moments of cowardice and betrayal, Reuben has learned grace’s proper place as truth’s partner and has found repentance. His breath has been restored through great sacrifice, and he now possesses true life. The greatest miracle of all has occurred—but it happened slowly and collectively.

Final Thoughts

In my humble opinion, Peace Like a River stands as a modern masterpiece of American literature, weaving together themes of faith, family, sacrifice, and redemption with prose that feels truly joyful. Enger has crafted a story that operates on multiple levels—as a coming-of-age tale, a family drama, and a profound meditation on the nature of miracles and grace. This is a novel that rewards careful reading and stays with you long after the final page.

Have you read “Peace Like a River”? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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