Early one morning in 1886, Ulysses Pope leaves his family, with a chicken under one arm, to embark on a journey that he hopes will save his immortal soul. The wife and two sons he deserts are devastated by his unannounced departure, and so begins a life-altering adventure that addresses questions far beyond the usual themes in a classic Western novel.

The High Divide (Algonquin, Sept.) is a book about a man living his life with integrity by putting his family and his life on the line to make amends on a grand scale. With enormous literary flare, Lin Enger has written a book that wrestles with the questions that plague a man when he goes to bed at night—the questions that must be answered if his life is to have any meaning at all.

This is a big-hearted work that will appeal to any reader who appreciates spare, beautiful prose and isn’t afraid of looking at the truth square in the eyes. I just loved this novel—it spoke to me on a level that very few books do.