Peace Like a River

by Enger, Leif

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Grove Press. August 20, 2002. Paperback. Near Fine. To the list of great American child narrators that includes Huck Finn and S cout Finch, let us now add Reuben "Rube" Land, the asthmatic 11-year-old bo y at the center of Leif Enger's remarkable first novel, Peace Like a River. Rube recalls the events of his childhood, in small-town Minnesota circa 19 62, in a voice that perfectly captures the poetic, verbal stoicism of the n orthern Great Plains. "Here's what I saw," Rube warns his readers. "Here's how it went. Make of it what you will." And Rube sees plenty. In the winter of his 11th year, two schoolyard bullies break into the Lands' house, and Rube's big brother Davy guns them down with a Winchester. Shortly after his arrest, Davy breaks out of jail and goes on the lam. Swede is Rube's younger sister, a precocious writer who crafts rhymed epics of romantic Western outlawry. Shortly after Davy's escape, Rube, Swede, and their father, a widowed school custodian, hit the road too, swerving this way and that across Minnesota and North Dakota, determined to find their lost outlaw Davy. In the end it's not Rube who haunts the reader's imagination, it's his father, torn between love for his outlaw son and the duty to do the right, honest thing. Enger finds something quietly heroic in the bred-in-the-bone Minnesota decency of America's heartland. Peace Like a River opens up a new chapter in Midwestern literature.

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  "This is an outstanding First Novel, although I would not recommend his later work. This was the first book in many years where I actually both laughed and cried out lound in reading it. This elegant piece of fiction will delight you. If you enjoy it, you may wish to try "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving."

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