Peace like river bible3/19/2023 ![]() It's the kind of story that used to be material for ballads, and Enger twines in numerous references to the Old West, chiefly through the rhymed poetry Swede writes about a hero called Sunny Sundown. But the FBI is following Davy as well, and Reuben has a part to play in the finale of that chase, just as he had a part to play in his brother's trial. From the vantage point of adulthood, Reuben tells how his father rescued his brother Davy's girlfriend from two attackers, how that led to Davy being jailed for murder and how, once Davy escapes and heads south for the Badlands of North Dakota, 12-year-old Reuben, his younger sister Swede and their janitor father light out after him. But it's the impassioned honesty of his quiet, measured narrative voice that gives weight and truth to the fantastic elements of this engrossing tale. The highlight of the book is its engaging narrator, Reuben Land: He's funny, endearing and committed to his family, no matter how wrong their actions.ĭead for 10 minutes before his father orders him to breathe in the name of the living God, Reuben Land is living proof that the world is full of miracles. Enger's book is filled with biblical illusions and miracles crowd its pages like proverbial angels on the head of a pin one curious scene features a pot of soup that replenishes itself in loaves-and-fishes fashion. Reuben, his father and younger sister become immersed in a series of mystical events as they follow Davy's trail across the northern United States. Set in the early 1960s, Enger's debut novel is narrated by eleven-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy whose close-knit family is broken apart after the oldest son, Davy, commits a crime of passion and becomes a fugitive. In 2018 Enger released Virgil Wander, a midwestern twist on magical realism about a town-and its inhabitants-struggling for a new lease on life.Įnger is married and lives on a farm in Minnesota with his wife. Published in 2008, it received has excellent reviews. His second novel, So Brave, Young, and Handsome is the story of an aging train robber's quest for self-discovery. Peace Like a River, published in 2001, has been described as "high-spirited and unflagging" and has received some notable acclaim in literary circles. Enger, produced a series of mystery novels featuring a retired baseball player. ![]() In the early 1990s, he and his older brother, Lin, writing under the pen name L.L. He worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio from 1984 until the sale of Peace Like a River to publisher Grove/Atlantic allowed him to take time off to write. Since his teens, Leif Enger has wanted to write fiction. Sprinkled with playful nods to Biblical tales, beloved classics such as Huckleberry Finn, the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the westerns of Zane Grey, Peace Like A River is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story, and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world. Their journey is touched by serendipity and the kindness of strangers, and they cover territory far more extraordinary than even the Badlands where they search for Davy from their Airstream trailer. The morning of his sentencing, Davy-a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to others-escapes from his cell, and the Lands set out in search of him. The quiet 1960's midwestern life of the Lands is upended when Reuben's brother Davy kills two marauders who have come to harm the family. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma from then on, making him a boy who knows firsthand that life is a gift, and also one who suspects that his father is touched by God and can overturn the laws of nature. ![]() Born with no air in his lungs, it was only when Reuben Land's father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to breathe that Reuben's lungs filled. ![]()
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