Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Peace Like A River

Peace Like A River
Peace Like A River
Author: Leif Enger
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
Kmarie avatar reviewed on + 529 more book reviews


I thought this was an excellent book. I listened to it on audio, and sort of followed along in the "hand held" version. The narrator has a real 'voice' and it is easy to read and follow. It is a rich mixture of adventure, tragedy and healing.

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. 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.The quiet 1960's midwestern life of the Lands is upended when Reuben's brother Davy kills to marauders who have come to harm the family. 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. 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. 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.