Peace Like a River

 Peace Like a River

By Leif Enger

I saw a book by this author in our school library. I'd never heard of him, and on the flap it mentioned that it
was a follow-up of sorts to his best-seller Peace Like a River. So rather than risk the new book, I went back to the old one to see what it was like.

It was quite the departure from the last novel I picked up, Martyr!. That one was wonderful, but also frenetic and chaotic and anxious. This one was, in contrast, quite peaceful -- despite the air of violence that envelops it.

The book tells the story of the Land family. They are nothing if tight-knit, turning their hardscrabble, rented house in western Minnesota into a veritable home. They would be the typical "all-American" family if not for two facts. First, the mother of the family has abandoned them, too disappointed in her husband's decision, made after taking a ride in a twister and emerging unscathed, to cease his studies to become a doctor in favor of janitoring. And second, this little sojourn in the tornado has somehow bestowed upon the elder Land some mystical, if not God-like qualities. He can, in fact, occasionally and, it seems, accidentally perform miracles. One day, he wanders off the edge of a porch and continues walking into midair. On another, his touch heals the face of the man in the act of firing him. 

The cozy domestic scene, however, is disrupted one evening when the eldest boy, Davy, lying in wait for two ne'er-do-well teen aged enemies, kills them when they enter the children's bedroom brandishing a bat. It would seem like self-defense, except he walks up to one of the boys writhing in pain on the floor and shoots him in the head like an injured horse. 

Davy is hauled off to jail, charged with manslaughter, and put on trial. Which doesn't go all too well. So Davy decides to up and leave. When the police can't find him for days, the rest of his family does the same, using a recently-inherited Airstream trailer to try to track Davy down. Somehow, they end up at a farmhouse gas station run by a woman named Roxanne in the badlands of North Dakota. There they -- well, only the book's 11-year-old narrator Reuben -- find Davy, and Jeremiah Land finds a beau. Rube takes several midnight rides to Davy's hideout, which he shares with a shadowy, dangerous-seeming fellow named Jape. Rube is happy to keep these rendezvous secret until he learns that the policeman pursuing Davy, to whom Rube and the family had eventually taken a liking, has located the hideout and plans to try take Davy there. Rube knows Jape won't like that, and will probably kill the policeman. So he blabs, and leads a posse of local ranchers there.

They are too late. The cabin is empty, save for the lawman's hat, which is not a good sign. Davy is gone. The family, however, is newly buoyed  by the fact that Roxanne will be joining them -- permanently. They had back to Minnesota, where there is a wedding and a move into a new home. Things are looking up. Then Davy returns. Unbeknownst to him, Jape has followed. And when Davy goes to leave, there is violence. Rube is shot. So is Jeremiah. The former's wound appears more serious. But Jeremiah is a miracle worker, and trades his life for his sons's.

Reading this book was like wearing a warm blanket on a cold day. Its prose, even in the tensest of moments, was just so earnest. It had me returning in my head to my Grandparent's house, to my own childhood when I was unencumbered by responsibilities. I read it in almost a dreamlike haze. I think I happened upon it at just the right moment.