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Summary: The light at the end of the tunnel...
Review: Through ups and downs of a life most would find overwhelming, this father and son hold onto the magic that awaits us all. They manage to ride out every storm that comes their way, almost mesmerized by the wild west poetry of the young heroine. This book will stand the test of time; and calls out to be read over and over, with each re-reading revealing yet another fascinating detail somehow overlooked earlier. The simple writing of this complex story reminds you that there is a light at the end of every tunnel. If the story is made into a movie, only Ron Howard or Steven Spielberg could be trusted to maintain its integrity and hold onto its magic.
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Summary: Proximity Theory by Thomas Black
Review: This gripping book explores the effect of proximity upon the development and maintenance of satisfactory human relationships. Heretofore, I had never seriously considered proximity as an issue of any serious significance to relationships. The characters are well-developed and credible. Thomas Black works skillfully with detail which is not trite or cloying as he profiles people who are very much like you and me. It was a quick and provocative read.
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Summary: Extremely disappointing
Review: I am just astounded at the great reviews this book is getting here. This is mediocre writing at best, and not very believable to boot, and I'm not just talking about the miracles. C'mon, an 8-year girl who singlehandedly cooks a huge XMAS dinner, starting with a freshly butchered turkey no less? A mother who clearly loves her child enough to endanger herself to protect the child during a tornado, but then one day inexplicably walks away from her family and is never heard from again?And as for the miracles, I wouldn't have had a problem with the guy surviving a tornado, or even with the child believing he saw his father walking on air one night, but after a while, this miracle stuff just went way overboard. In the end, it struck me as a bible story, and not a very good one. Very little believable character development, a thin plot, and a completely implausible ending. And I strongly disagree with a previous reviewer who disparaged Kent Haruf's Plainsong in comparison to this book. If you want to read a "heartlands" novel, Plainsong is in every way the far superior novel. If you want to read a coming-of-age book, Larry Watson's Montana 1948 leaves this one in the dust.
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Summary: A critical reader finaly finds a "10"
Review: I read...a lot. This is perhaps the best work I've seen in the last five years. His characters come alive, his story moves in unexpected ways and best yet- you realy care how it will turn out for them. The story is told through the honest/naive/wise eyes of the 11 year old boy who both fears for and worships his family. The Lands are the kind of people you think you know from somewhere or wish you did. The author has an wonderous way with dialoge and you find yourself stoping to re-read some lyrical passages as one would savor expensive chocolate.
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Summary: Classically great!
Review: It's so satisfying to come across a genuinely delicious read like Peace Like a River. Leif Enger is truly gifted. I would love to see this book get the publicity it deserves. Such well crafted characters and descriptions of the Minnesota/North Dakota wintry landscapes. A little magic, family love and devotion, humor. And all of these things surround tragedy. I particularly fell for Swede's poetry. This should be a book on you Christmas list, and is a great story to read to the family.
So what are you waiting for?
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Summary: He's Got a Whole World in His Hand
Review: Within a few paragraphs of begining Leif Enger's "Peace Like a River", I had to stop and smile and turn the book over to read Frank McCourt's("Angela's Ashes")comments on the back one more time. I looked again at the cover and title that had drawn me to the book for a quick read of the jacket and then back a second time to buy it. I thought of the world I had just entered through the hand of Mr. Enger and Reuben, his self-effacing and often winded eleven year old narrator. I reread some lines that set the place and time as rural Minnesota in the 1950's and I thought of the father, Jerimiah, whose plain as cotton faith is the engine of the Land family's journey. The misfortune and drama that tracks their wifeless, motherless world was compelling and vivid, like Ruben's writing prodigy sister Swede's Old West poetry. I flat-out love this book and it's "To Kill A Monkingbird"-like simplicity and power. I've sung a few old hymns in the style and substance I think Leif Enger would appreciate. In a way, reading his story was like that - comforting and profound with familiar themes masterfully played. "Peace Like A River" has, in one reading, become my most admired work of fiction, and easily one of the ten best books I've read. Ever.
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Summary: This is a slow moving story...
Review: This is a slow moving story about a young boy growing up under the shadow of an outlaw brother, a runaway mother, and a horrible asthmatic condition. There is a bit of action here when eleven year old Reuben Land's brother kills two boys who have hurt his girlfriend and threatened his family. Davy is the older brother, wanted for murder, who busts out of jail to become an elusive figure throughout the story. Ned Land, father of Davy, Reuben, and a little girl named Swede, is a tragic figure throughout. He has no wife, but does his best to raise three young children. When the murder happens, all of their lives take a turn in a direction they could have never predicted. Torn between what is right and protecting Davy, the family sets out to find Davy, traveling through the Badlands, followed and watched by a sneaky federal agent named Mr. Andreeson, and state troopers everywhere. The story is told by eleven year old Reuben, who tries very hard to convince the reader that his father has God-like powers. The story centers around this theme, and it is hard to take anything seriously with this thought behind everything. Still, it is a nice story, a story of small miracles and acts of faith, of a family tormented by loss and tragedy. Leif Enger did a nice job of pulling all of the characters together, of somehow making this unlikely story work. It is no blockbuster, but it is a good read.
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Summary: Upstream
Review: Why am I venturing against the River current by awarding a "mere" 4 stars? The book was really good in places, but lagged in others. What was the point of the over-long 2nd grade epic "Western" poem? Mr. Enger is not a Northern-lighted Harper Lee ("To Kill a Mockingbird.") The journey of the Land family is inspirational and well worth your time, but he's not Steinbeck and they're not the Joads ("The Grapes of Wrath.") "River" is far better, though, than "Plainsong" or "The Shipping News" because it is real fiction without the pretensions of the latter books to be 'avant garde" or "artsy." But there's no need to return to THAT soap box now. Read "River." It is a fine "Regional Book" that transcends the region.
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Summary: Reuben Land, Holden Caulfield and Francis McCourt
Review: I've had to re-write this review three times because the first drafts made me sound like a gushing, blushing school girl. That's how enamored of this novel I am. Leif Enger's "Peace Like A River" is the story of the Land family set in the early 1960's in rural Minnesota: Jeremiah the father, Davy the eldest son, Reuben, 11 yrs old and the novel's narrator, and Swede, daughter and sister, verse writer and an "Old West" afficianado. The story itself is simple: Davy kills two young men who have broken into the Land home, is put on trial for murder and escapes jail when it seems he is to be convicted. Obviously this turns the Land Family upside down and the bulk of the novel is concerned with finding Davy and forging, through necessity, a new life for all. The novel begins with the birth of Reuben, who appears stillborn until Jeremiah enters the operating room: "As mother cried out. Dad turned back to me, a clay child wrapped in a canvas coat, and said in a normal voice, "Reuben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe." And so begins the first of the "miracles" which occur throughout this novel. And no, this is not a religious novel per se though faith is very important to the Land family, Jeremiah is particular. And Leif Enger is not only concerned with the hereafter, he's also very aware of the here and now. I've never read a novel that mentions, explains, makes reference to such a disparate set of characters: Teddy Roosevelt, God, Jesus, Butch Cassidy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bob and Cole Younger, Jesse James,Swanson chicken-in-a-can, "Moby Dick," Lewis and Clark, Moses, Natty Bumppo, Jonah ("...such a griper. Whine all day. Probably God sent the whale so He could get three days of peace and quiet."). And much more. Enger, obviously bursting with knowledge, makes these references out of a need and a love to inform and in the process inbues his characters with these same qualities ( As a contrast,in "American Psycho," Bret Easton Ellis makes ten times as many cultural references than does Enger but the effect is showy,coy and ultimately boring). There is also great Love and caring in "Peace Like a River." The Land's truly love each other with the kind of love that accepts, forgives and annoints themselves and each other as in holy communion.
"Peace Like A River" is energetic, magical and beautifully written in a style that can only be called gorgeous: "Was there ever a place you loved to go--your grandma's house, where you were a favorite child...and you arrived once as she lay in sickness? Remember how the light seemed wrong, and the adults off-key and the ambient and persistent joy you'd grown to expect in that place was gone, slipped off as the ghost slips the body?" "Peace like a River" can now take it's place among the pantheon of similar-themed novels: Barry Udall's "The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint," J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes." Pretty good company...if you ask me.
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Summary: Read this book!
Review: This is an astounding read -- I have not enjoyed a book so thoroughly since discovering Ann Patchett. I was hard pressed to put it down, yet did not want it to end.
The story (a journey really) and characters were well developed. Swede is part Scout from "To Kill A Mockingbird" and part Phoebe from "Catcher In the Rye." Rueben, the eleven year old narrator is equally as endearing, and their father is simply amazing.
Leif Enger is a wordsmith and his style of writing is one of the best I have read to date. Do yourself a favor and read this book!!
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