Search - Peace Like a River (Audio Cassette) (Unabridged)

Peace Like a River (Audio Cassette) (Unabridged)
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Peace Like a River (Audio Cassette) (Unabridged)
Author: Leif Enger, Chad Lowe (Narrator)
Audio book costs 2 credits.

Book Information
Publisher: HarperAudio
Book Type: Audio Cassette
Rating:
4

ISBN-13: 9780694525836 - ISBN-10: 0694525839
Publication Date: 9/1/2001


Other Versions of this Book: Paperback, Hardcover, Hardcover

Book Description:
Dead 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. 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.

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 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. 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.

That the story is set in the early '60s in Minnesota gives it an archetypal feel, evoking a time when the possibility of getting lost in the country still existed. Enger has created a world of signs, where dead crows fall in a snowstorm and vagrants lie curled up in fields, in which everything is significant, everything has weight and comprehension is always fleeting.

Read by: Chad Lowe
Unabridged: 7 Cassettes, 11 1/2 hrs.

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Please Rate these Book Reviews

Michele S. (queenofeverything) wrote on 12/18/2008...


This audio book was totally fascinating to listen to. I fell in love with the charachters and even though the father for example could have become a caricacture of his religious beliefs but he is portrayed as such a kind and nurturing man that he doesn't seem nuts at all. The end came out of nowhere and it leaves you satisfied somewhere. A total gem.

Bonnie S. (Bonnie) wrote on 11/11/2008...


I have both the print and the audio versions of this book, and cannot believe that it took me until now to read either copy of this wonderful book that was published back in 2001! How to describe it? Adventure? Mystery? Fantasy? It is all of those, but mostly, a quest.

The audio version is read by Chad Lowe, and if he is to ever receive an award for his work, this should be it. He is an outstanding narrator for this book. One of the best I've ever heard.

Set in the Midwest in the 1960's, this tale is told by 11 year old, asthmatic Reuben, starting with his own stillbirth, and miraculous resurrection by his father. An ordinary man, a school janitor, divorced and doing a fine job of raising his 3 children, who just happens to walk on air when he prays. The story moves to the Badlands when the father takes Reuben and his 9 year old sister Swede out of school to search for their 16 year old brother who has broken out of jail after being convicted of murdering the young men who were harassing the family. Here, moving from Jetstream & the FBI, to horseback and posse, it appears we are reliving a western, and indeed, in comes a relative of Butch Cassidy, and we learn what really happened to him and The Kid.
All the characters are entertaining, but none as much as Swede, who even at that young age is destined to be a marvelous writer, whose epic, rhyming poem of the Old West's Good Guys vs. Bad Guys is interspersed throughout the script. A delight, indeed.
A tragedy for sure, this is still a story of hope, love, and a belief in magic and family. A real page-turner.

Sandra D. (bookcrazychick) wrote on 6/8/2006...


One of the best books I have ever read. The writing is beautiful.


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