Brown, Peter C., The Fugitive Wife. W. W. Norton. Hardbound. 400 pages. $24.95.

Let’s look into a writer’s mind for a minute. He wants to write a novel, and knows the old rule about writing about what you know. Okay, he knows rural Minnesota and his grandfather spent some time in Nome around 1900. He’s also a birder. A great idea - write a novel combining all three.

Unfortunately, he knows far more about farming in Minnesota in 1900 than he knows about Nome of that time. The reader may become a bit tired of planting, harvesting, buying and selling land, although perhaps not if the reader lives in Minnesota.

The story idea is good. Esther Crummey is an 18-year-old farm girl who falls for the itinerant laborer, Leonard. They marry, but Leonard turns out to be a drunkard, thief, liar, and all-round nogoodnik. After the baby dies in the house fire Leonard accidentally sets, Essie sets off for Nome.

Of course she meets a completely eligible young man there who is also a birder, but Leonard comes looking for her. However, Essie has changed. She’s become a competent businesswoman, respected in the town.

To be fair, the writing is competent, even excellent in places. A large hognose snake that later figures prominently in the story is brought to Essie by Leonard when they’re courting.

“Touch it,” he said.

She glanced in Leonard’s eyes to read if he was in earnest. She was frightened of it and yet drawn. It was magnificent. It recalled to her the serpent in the Tree of Knowledge. It was coiled at the head and neck, watchful, beckoning. She reached around behind and touched it far from the head, and when it did not seem to mind she put her whole hand on it and let her fingers curl around its thickness. She felt of the surprising silkiness, the skin a sheath over its living power and wildness.”

Of course Leonard the Louse finds Essie and has a predictable fate, but the end is more ambiguous than we thought.

Brown has a real future as a writer, but next time, this Alaskan pleads, let’s have a lot less of plowing in Minnesota.

D. L.