Lin Enger

Although set in the American West in 1886, The High Divide is not a typical western by any means. This is first and foremost a book about family. When Ulysses Pope up and disappears, his wife and two sons do not know why. Has he abandoned them? Has he gone searching for work? The not-knowing of what sent Ulysses west is driving this family over the edge. Then the two sons disappear, riding the rails in search of their father, leaving Greta distraught and at the mercy of a lecherous landlord show more and with no choice but to follow her family west.

The truth behind Ulysses Pope’s departure is the driving force of this book. Drive by guilt from the past, Ulysses seeks to find some kind of redemption. His family are following him and facing their own trials along the way. Using gripping and emotional prose, the author places this family in peril and then sets about rebuilding and strengthening their emotional ties.

Using historical events to weave his story together, the author uses the theme of both the demise of the buffalo herds and the bloody attacks and reprisals between the Plains Indians and the American soldiers to highlight his story of redemption and family devotion.

This story totally drew me in and captured my imagination with it’s ability to be both wide in scope and intimate in details. show less

Thank you Algonguin Press and NetGalley for the advanced e-copy of this book.

I loved it.

Following in the tradition of old west novels, I was drawn into the harsh and unforgiving plains life as a backdrop to the even harsher world of the human mind.

There are parallel challenges between living in an extreme natural environment and facing their own unfathomable mental wilderness. The story draws the reader steadily along hoping that this family will find the strength to survive both worlds.

The show more fluid descriptions of the American Great Plains provides the historical backdrop.

The essence of the story is the difficulty individuals face trying to grasp and understand their own mental and moral code in a world with other struggling souls doing the same. The emotional and moral story is timeless and challenges the reader to reflect on the nature of their own personal secrets and honesty. show less

Lin Enger's THE HIGH DIVIDE is a story that will grab you and hold on until you finish reading it. Set in the American West in the 1880s, it takes you into the heart of a troubled family, the Popes, in a small west Minnesota town. Ulysses, the father, is a veteran of the Civil War who harbors a dark secret, one that causes him to leave his family and travel west into the Dakota and Montana Territories in an attempt to right past wrongs and exorcise his personal demons. Wife Gretta, a Danish show more immigrant, cannot understand why her husband of seventeen years would suddenly disappear, and tries desperately to hold her family together. Sons Eli and Danny hop a freight train to go looking for their father. It's a tangled tale to be sure, but a gripping one, filled with bits of history woven seamlessly into the plot line. Custer and the Indian wars, the extermination of the buffalo, some renegade Native Americans who have escaped the reservations to hunt the remnants of the once vast herds of bison, now mostly memories and piles of bleached bones across the west.

And yes, given the protagonist's name, there are elements of The Odyssey here, with another Ulysses who never quite shook off his war and is still trying to find his way home, although Gretta is no Penelope. Enger's story also strongly suggests that PTSD is nothing new, that combatants of the US Civil War and the Plains Indian Wars were just as plagued and tortured as today's returning veterans.

The spare elegant prose here will bring to mind Charles Frazier's COLD MOUNTAIN, as well as the lesser-known BUTCHER'S CROSSING, John Williams' classic novel of the last of the buffalo hunters. And the references to Custer's Seventh Cavalry and the infamous winter raid on Black Kettle's camp on the Washita will no doubt remind readers of Thomas Berger's LITTLE BIG MAN, as well as that novel's fine film adaptation.

As I said earlier, I was caught up from page one of this beautifully written page-turner. The only fault I might find is with the ending, which seemed a bit too abrupt and anticlimactic, maybe a little too neat, too pat. But Lin Enger's novel draws from the finest traditions of classic literature and earlier novels of the American West, with a cast of memorable characters in a story that is original, unique and moving. The Pope family will no doubt linger in my mind for a long time. Highly recommended. show less

A veteran of the War Between the States leaves his family wondering why he suddenly left and whether he’s coming back. They know there is something in his past that oppresses him, but they do not understand. His two boys are too young, and his wife’s example of her own mother makes her leave well enough alone.

This is a story about a family trying to find itself again, about guilt and a journey for redemption. This is my favorite kind of story-telling – strongly character driven, with show more a rich sense of place and time. With the High Divide, it is almost as if Lin Enger has made an Albert Bierstadt painting come to life. show less