Lin McLean Book

Lin McLean is a series of intertwined short stories that builds to a really nice finish.

Lin is introduced as a free-spirited cow-boy who is moved by a sermon on the Prodigal Son returns home only to discover that he is not wanted (by his brother) but realizes that at least in his case this is no longer home for him. Being on the open range has profoundly changed him and as Owen Wister describes in the context of a death and subsequent funeral at miserable place called Dry Bone what is really means to live in the west and gives us insight into the how and why Lin McLean had been so molded by his experiences in Wyoming.

Interestingly the story also traces Lin moving from being basically a boy into a man with a conscience. As a boy he marries impetuously and later as a man learns the true meaning of love:

Even though there were moments of joy
and these sometimes so deep

I had not realized how deeply unfulfilled I was until I got to know you
- felt what it was like to be otherwise -
finding then that existence without you a vacuum

then it became the impotence of being unable to do anything,
if only to say your name, to think it

The time we were together I cherish, and again feel that joy
But it is the continuity of your presence I miss, not the fragments
and it was not simply the joy of knowing you
But that the joy of your presence had crept up on me so unawares,
and lingers still

It's a quiet and simple story, that like love creeps on one unawares. I suspect also this is very much a man's book and I heard about it and sought it out after having completed The Virginian. I ended the book feeling quite satisfied in the characterizations, story and finale and recommend it.

Edwin