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Summary: One of my top 5: vivid characters, rich story
Review: I took a chance on this book "My Amazon" recommended to me (despite my reticence to do so) and am so grateful I did. This book was captivating from first page to last. I love\ this book. Read it twice in a row (which I never do) and then have given half a dozen copies away as gifts since. If you love creative, compelling characters in a great story and don't mind some faith and a moral quandary thrown in, this is a great book for you.
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Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: I loved every word of this book. Excellent prose and interesting characters. I highly recommend it. I can't wait to read Mr. Enger's next book.
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Summary: They Don;t Get Much Better
Review: Here is a book of linguistic genius coupled with a real story and characters with character. If you are a lover of language you have found a gem. This book that reads like poetry. Tha Land family survives in Minnesota with Dad and 3 children. Mom is dead but the family unit perseveres and endears the reader from the start. Tragedy strikes as one son commits a crime and becomes a fugutive. Do you know how hard it is to make us like the criminal even though we know he has commited a crime? Enger does this and more as he blends his story and a poem that is being written by one of the siblings. The interwoven poem is as good as the story. You could almost publish is separetly and sell a million copies. Whatever motive you have for picking this book up your needs will be fulfilled. If you want a masterpice of writing, a good yarn, real people or poetic justice, Peace Like a River will satisfy your desires. It is hard to believe that you will find many books better than this this year. Ten times better than most of the NY Times best sellers and I read almost every one.
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Summary: I really wanted to write to the Author
Review: To personally tell him that his book was beautiful, one of the best I have read in a long time. Thank you!
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Summary: The most beautiful book I ever read!
Review: This book brought laughter, tears, dispair, hope, wonder, amazment - all within the first 100 pages. I wanted it to go on and on forever. The beauty of the words and how they are put together is incredible. This is how a book should be written. It will be a classic for sure. Don't miss this one.
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Summary: a good yarn and thought provoking too
Review: 'Peace Like a River' is an excellent book club selection. There are so many aspects of it that cry out for discussion. How does Davy's life on the lam compare with Swede's 'Legend of Sunny Sundown'? Why does Reuben Land's father use his miraculous abilities to cure the man who fires him but not his own son? Are Jeremiah Land and Jape Waltzer symbolic representations of
God and Satan? Does Reuben's nickname, 'Rube', mean Leif Enger wants us to him as an unsophisticated yokel? Most of the book reads like a cool drink of water. It's refreshing and goes down easy. Seen through the innocent eyes of children a story with lots of room for gray areas is portrayed mostly in shades of black and white. As a child, Reuben understands goodness and so describes Roxanna's goodness in rich detail. His understanding of evil is not so complete and so his description of Jape is sketchy at best. We know there's something evil about him. We're just not exactly sure what it is. One final question that merits discussion is, 'Why the lame ending?' Don't get me wrong. Fore the most part, the book is great. It's just that I've seen drunkards' zippers with more closure. With Swede and all her western romanticism, one would think that that there would be something at the end akin to riding off into the sunset. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
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Summary: majestic hymn to family strength, faith, personal integrity
Review: Leif Enger's stunning debut novel, "Peace like a River," is part hymn, part epic myth and part lament to an American past in which individual virtue and steadfastness of faith elevate men and women. Enger has described a world of faith, one in which an asthmatic child savors religious truth, tangible miracles and ironclad trust in a father whose love for his children is eclipsed only by his devotion to his God. The characters who populate "Peace" become living symbols while at the same time gracefully engaging us in their physical, moral and spiritual struggles. The physical environment of this bighearted novel is uninviting. Wintry Minnesota and North Dakota provide appropriate physical challenges to the Land family, which must adapt to a crucial decision made by the oldest son Davy. That decision, to pursue a violent, but just, resolution to two miscreants who terrorize the Land family, compels Davy to flee and the remnants of his family to pursue. This quest, both temporal and spiritual, is the heart of the novel, and the author probes themes of family coherence, justice, truth, redemption, and faith with quiet, perfect timbre. Enger is a magnificent writer, whose narrative abilities alone make "Peace" worth reading. However, it is his characterization of the Land family which transforms his novel. The narrator, Reuben Land, an eleven-year-old asthmatic boy, defines our perspective and never permits his adult recollections of the events of his childhood to interfere with an authentic, often painful, recounting of his participation in the central action of the novel, the discovery of his "outlaw" brother. While Reuben discounts his own ability to understand and interpret events, he never underestimates the talents of his sister, Swede, who emereges as an enormously sympathetic young woman. It is Swede's penchant for poetry, symbolism and subtelty that enriches our understanding of the enormous pressures and conflicts the children experience basking in the presence and shivering in the shadow of their father. Much like the novel, Jeremiah Land has a "foundation...laid in prayer and sorrow." Through Swede's eyes, he emerges as either a full-blown Homeric hero or the living embodiment of a champion of justice of the Old West. Readers will recognize his afflictions as similar to Job, and Jeremiah gains stature as he is seemingly purified by God's many painful tests of his faith. From the onset of the novel, readers glimpse the impossible occurring through Jeremiah's intervention. He literally breathes life into his newborn son; he survives a tornado; during prayer, he walks on air. These miracles pale in comparison to the one he hopes to achieve with and through his family as they search for Davy. A major triumph of the novel is Enger's unwillingness to permit his writing to become predicatable or saccharine. Instead the bulk of the novel forces readers to either suspend their own disbelief or submerge their own skepticism. In a moving afterword, Leif Enger pays homage to his father, who "believes in vivid narration," and his mother, "who writes better letters than anyone since the Apostle Paul." The author is a living representation of the values he extols in his parents. "Peace like a River" deserves the widest audience. Its unabashed belief in the integrity of the human spirit, its bighearted acceptance of the possibility of miracles and its loving evocation of family love and truth intermingle. This is a novel worth reading, savoring and sharing.
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Summary: A Must Read.
Review: No matter what your taste is, you will love this book. A wonderful story beautifully told. Reminds me of Holden Caulfield and his sister in "The catcher in the rye". It's one of those books you can't put down, and stays with you for a long time.
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Summary: Add to your personal library...
Review: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
Poetry in fiction. Peace Like a River reads with such lilting beauty that I often found myself gasping at the sheer gracefulness of his prose. Reuben, Davy, Swede and Dad Land often reminded me of Atticus, Gem Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird with their devotion to one another despite their imperfections-oh, that every family was like the Lands. A book that you will treasure long after the last page is turned, Peace Like a River an excellent choice to add to your personal library.
-Traci DePree, author of A Can of Peas
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Summary: Clever and thoughtful
Review: Read this one! I don't normally care for folksy prose but Enger won me over in about 50 pages. By the time I read 250 pages, I was thinking it could be a classic. Enger has a wonderful knack for expressing thoughts that aren't easily verbalized. He resists the temptation to overstate while offering wonderful insights into the thought processes of children. It is cleverly written and often funny. The end was disappointing to me as it caused me to think, "That wouldn't have really happened" on a couple of occasions. Nonetheless I highly recommend the book and look forward to Enger's next.
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