Peace Like a River audiobook

This is a wonderful tale of the strength of family during hardships and struggle. The oldest child of Jeremiah Land - Davey gets into a fight with the local thugs when they break into his home and threaten the safety of his younger siblings. One of the two is killed and suddenly Davey is up for manslaughter. He hits the road, leaving his family with no clue where he's gone and how bad things will get if he is discovered.If you can't stomach religion then maybe put this one aside as it has a heavy focus on the faith of Jeremiah and the miracles they witness while on their travels to find Davey. As they say the journey is the destination - so it isn't so much the search for Davey as the things the family discover, the people they meet and the difficulties they overcome.If you like stories set in the Southern states, where family is stronger than the law then this one is for you.

How do I write this to persuade the uninitiated how great Peace Like a River is without seeming like a freak? A cursory glance at the synopsis should've had me running for the hills. At its core, its about good old-fashioned family values, faith (read: religion), and "miracles" (read: divine intervention). It also features Zane Grey/Louis L'amour-influenced epic poetry (as penned by a precocious 8 year-old), narration by an asthmatic 11 year-old, desperadoes and fugitives from the law like Butch Cassidy, Jesse James, and the Younger brothers. Meh. I don't like old-timey Westerns, I'm not much for precocious kids telling stories, and, well, as for the faith and miracles thing, this "Doubting Thomas" subscribes more to Jon Krakauer's school of thought:: "Faith is the very antithesis of reason".(And, yet, were I to put Goodreads to use as it was intended and "shelve" my favorites, you'd find no less than three novels in my Top Ten with faith/spirituality as a centerpiece: David James Duncan's sublime The Brothers K and The River Why and John Irving's simply transcendent A Prayer for Owen Meany. And, so, with the latest contender for a spot on my top ten, Leif Enger's stunner makes four novels with spirituality at their nexus. Go figure.)Peace Like a River is not exactly plot-heavy. (There's certainly a plot here, but it's one you'll want to drink in as the story and atmospherics envelop you). It's a story (set in the early 1960's in the cold, barren farmlands of Western Minnesota, and the even colder, even more barren Badlands of the Dakotas) of the Land family: narrator Reuben, an asthmatic fellow relaying the events of the book in retrospect; father Jeremiah, a mostly-ambitionless, schoolhouse janitor and ultra-pious disciple of God (and conduit to, or source of many of the aforementioned miracles); Reuben's younger sister Swede, whose poetry serves as parallel allegory to the actions of their older brother; and Davy, whose actions to defend his girlfriend and sister from a pair of thugs land him in jail...and worse.Indelible characters (particularly Ruben, Swede and Jeremiah, as iconic as Scout, Jem, and Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird) unforgetable dialogue, vivid you-are-there scenery, and a story to keep you turning the pages till the wee hours (yet slow enough to savor every sentence) are all components of a near-masterpiece. I urge you all to give Enger's 2001 (!) novel (his first of only two penned) a read, no matter your receptivity to stories of spirituality and faith (and the Old West) It's a keeper. Highly recommended.

I'm rereading this again for a book club I'm hosting. It is one of my all-time favorite books because it has GREAT writing, a wonderful message, a twisting plot and has laugh out loud parts. When people ask me for a book to read, this is the first one I recommend.

5★“He said, ‘Can you get out of the house without rousting everybody?’ Well, of course I could. I'd read as much Twain as the next boy.”A crime, a fugitive, young children, a road trip, an adventure, a romance, terror, near-death-experiences, tragedy, and even cowboy poetry! What more could I possibly want? Oh yes, a small hint of magic, which we might believe but couldn't prove. “The fact is, the miracles that sometimes flowed from my father's fingertips had few witnesses but me.”Young Reuben Land is eleven, with terrible asthma. When he was born ”my lungs refused to kick in.” Twelve minutes without breathing, so the kindly doctor explained why some children don’t thrive. . . “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.’”Yes, he’s heard the story many times and not thought a lot about it really. When you’re a kid, you just accept the way things are. He accepts, for example, that his older brother Davey is a strong hero, learning to be a good hunter. He accepts that his little sister Swede is tough and strong-willed.“Swede and I rarely quarreled, for I never held opinions in those days, and hers were never wrong.” He accepts that he will always be the family weakling, his lungs like faulty bellows that have become “spongebound. Your breaths are sips, couldn't blow out the candle on a baby's cake.”But Swede’s got enough get-up-and-go for the both of them. She’s smart, and she’s never at a loss for words, young as she is.“‘It worries me,’ I said. ‘How come?’ I couldn't put words to it, but Swede, as usual, could. ‘Afraid we're being impertinent?’‘Yes.’‘Presumptuous? Arrogant? Blasphemous?’ This still happens with Swede and me. I'll lack a word, and she'll dump out a bushel of them.She has also become enamoured of Zane Grey paperbacks and fancies herself a cowgirl and a poet, so of course Reuben is her rapt audience, spurring her on (pardon the cowpoke jargon).“What was Miss Nelson supposed to think when Swede, dimpled and blond, coming up on nine years old, handed in a poem like ‘Sunny Sundown Delivers the Payroll’.?The men who worked the Redtail Mine were fed up with the boss.They swarmed around his office door like blackflies round a hoss.‘No wages these three months!’ one cried. ‘Let's hang the lousy rat!He'll starve our very children, boys, while he himself gets fat!’And true enough, behind the door, a fat man shook and wept;The wobbling bags beneath his eyes said this man hadn't slept.A messenger had brought him word that made him feel his age:Valdez, last night—the third straight month!—had robbed the payroll stage.Thus begins the long saga of Sunny Sundown and his quest to hunt down the evil Valdez as well as find himself the love of a good woman, and all the other delights this young girl can dream up. The main story is peppered with stanzas, not all in the same rhyme, and they are a delight. New characters appear as Swede takes out her frustration and impatience with the family's stalled quest in verse. “Then up the tight street came a rider so sweet, She was light as the dawn, and as free—And her hair was as black as her stallion's back, And she parted the crowd like a sea.” Swede’s ballad carries on through the family’s hunt across the frozen, wind-swept Dakotas, and it is a very cold experience, so I suggest you enjoy it while you yourself are warm. It’s not only the cold that is breath-taking, but the fear and the danger are as well. Not Swede, but Reuben ends up on horseback, terrified. I have ‘slid’ like this downhill on horseback, and this describes it perfectly. “If you've never essayed a decline like that on the back of a horse I don't know what to tell you. There's a separation from ground and a hopeless union with the animal as down you go—can't hear a thing but gravel clatter, absolutely can't steer. The mare laid her ears back, splayed her front feet, set haunches to earth, and slid.”Here is what it looks like, but without the snow, although it’s a still from the movie, The Man From Snowy River. (Swede would have loved it!)“But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,”I’ve concentrated on the kids, because I loved them, but Dad and the other adults are every bit as engaging. Enger makes sure you understand who and what these people are. I’ll give one example of someone we might all like to know.“There's no way a person can really prepare for someone like Mrs. DeCuellar. Buxom and businesslike on her doorstep, once she had you inside she became the woman you wish had lived next door all the days of your childhood. She was short, round, bright. At the age when most women begin putting up their hair, she wore hers long, for beauty, and it was beautiful—black and woolly, her very own buffalo robe. She had turquoise earrings and crisp metallic perfume; helping Swede off with her coat, she knelt and put her cheek to Swede's and held it there a moment before getting up; then she said, ‘Breakfast's ready, sweet ones,’ and marched us to the kitchen. It was fitting, that march; there was something about Mrs. DeCuellar that reminded you of a bass drum.”And here’s another sort of character altogether.“He was of unimposing height, under six feet. A practical build, big up top, one of those men you realize why it's called a chest—you had the feeling he had all the tools he needed in there and all in working order and daily use.”A supremely satisfying read. I read Enger’s 2018 novel Virgil Wander before I read this, and I loved it as well. I reviewed that here, if you’re interested. Link to my ‘Virgil Wander’ reviewON a different note, if you’d like to read the poem, The Man From Snowy River (and I recommend it!), here it is with no frills.https://www.gutenberg.org/files/213/2...And if you’d like to see what it’s like to ride headlong, downhill, flat out, have a look. You give the horse their head, lie back, and hang on! (This is from the film where Jim is the only one who can turn the mob and bring them in. Nice music, even if the guy uploaded the clip with a typo on the website)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAEIb...[p.s. Yes, I know this is long, but it' s not required reading. :) ]

Just as beautiful as before. I enjoyed Chad Lowe's narration this time around. Deeply moving, organically told tale with lovely character development. Highly recommended.

One of my all time favorites !

This was such a great book! Don't miss this one!

Just finished this book. Highly recommend it! It is a very creative story, full of wonderful prose, and characters you come to love, admire and hate. Very interesting spiritual theme running throughout the book. It is clear the author has some understanding of the miraculous! This is certainly not a story that has what we would call a happy ending, but surprises you and on some level it makes sense. And the ending is not even the most important thing - it is walking the journey with these characters that brings joy in the reading, and though it is fiction, they seem as real as anyone we might know.One of my favorite parts of the book is near the beginning, soon after the main character, an 11 year old boy named Reuben, is born and lives though the dr. who delivered him pronounced him dead when his lungs failed to inflate. I knew I would like the book after reading these lines:"Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week - a miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards. I'm sorry, but nope.Such things are worth our notice every day of the week, but to call them miracles evaporates the strength of word. Real miracles bother people . . . they rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing out of the grave - now there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks . . . A miracle contradicts the will of the earth. My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed - though ignoring them will change you also." Read it!

"Peace Like a River" opens with the narrator's stillbirth. "My lungs refused to kick in," Reuben writes in a moment that's at once terrifying and reassuring. While the doctor mumbles platitudes and his mother wails, Reuben's father senses that something's wrong. He sprints across the parking lot, back into the hospital, up into the room, and punches the doctor to get to his limp son. "Reuben Land," he commands, "in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe."How wonderful that the word "inspiration" refers to filling the lungs with air and the soul with motivation. This first novel by Leif Enger draws its life from that holy pun. It's a rich atmosphere of adventure, tragedy, and healing that will make you breathe faster and deeper.Reuben tackles skeptics in the first scene: "Real miracles bother people," he writes, "like sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: They rebut every rule us good citizens take comfort in.... A miracle contradicts the will of earth. My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: people fear miracles because they fear being changed - though ignoring them will change you also."What follows is the remarkable story of Reuben's 11th year. He lives with his precocious younger sister, his strong-willed older brother, Davy, and their saintly father in a small Minnesota town in the early 1960s.Their mother abandoned them years before, probably out of frustration that her husband, Jeremiah, had no worldly ambition. Seen only through the lens of his son's adulation, the end of that marriage is difficult to explain, but we know it went bad soon after a life-threatening accident transported Jeremiah in more ways than one.Now, he cares for his children with quiet devotion and works at the public school as a janitor. Looking back at those years, Reuben confesses some moments of shame about his father's vocation, but he's bursting with wonder to tell about the events he witnessed in their home.Despite his humble life, Jeremiah commands powers that stem from his profoundly active faith. "He had laid up prayer as if with a trowel," Reuben writes. Hours spent reading the Bible and talking with God allow him to effect sudden cures, stretch small meals, and even, in one of the book's most gorgeous scenes, walk above a field of thistles. The style isn't so much "magical realism" as "spiritual realism."I know what you're thinking: It has a kind of clammy "Touched by an Angel" feel. But it's saved by Reuben's raw honesty and the novel's bracing vitality. "A miracle is no cute thing," he writes, "but more like the swing of a sword." So is Reuben's voice - slicing away the sweet fat that could have made this story nauseating.Trouble breaks into their lives when Jeremiah interrupts some young thugs trying to rape his son's girlfriend. He beats them pretty savagely with a broomstick, and in the process incurs the wrath of a couple of characters who scare even the local police.Unfortunately, they don't scare his older son, who remains a heroic silhouette throughout the novel. Davy picks up the challenge where his father won't and continues to feud with his girlfriend's assailants. Acts of vandalism lead to acts of kidnapping, then assault, and finally murder.Davy's arrest splits the town. Few openly sympathize with the late thugs, but many are quietly pleased to see pious Jeremiah taken down a step or two. Davy's siblings, however, are unwavering in their devotion. The morning of the trial, before Swede and Reuben can implement their ludicrous plan to break Davy from jail, he escapes on his own.It's a foolish, illegal move, of course, but beyond that, it's a rejection of his father's faith. Davy loves his dad, but he finds the concept of an omnipotent God as claustrophobic as the cell. "Davy wanted life to be something you did on your own," Reuben writes. "The whole idea of a protective fatherly God annoyed him."Guided only by Jeremiah's prayers, the family sets out into the Badlands of North Dakota, searching for Davy, eluding the police, and nursing Reuben through increasingly severe attacks of asthma. The romantic Western tone of this quest is stirred and even satirized by the epic poem Swede writes along the way about a brave cowboy who wrestles with outlaws and the law:The blizzard shipped in from the west like a grinOn a darkened, malevolent face,And the posse that sought Mr. Sundown was caughtIn an awfully dangerous place.That a 9-year-old composes this poem is perhaps the book's most challenging miracle, but like so many other unlikely details here, Reuben forces us to believe with the power of his disarming exuberance. You can't help but resonate with the delight he takes in this story.Enger has written a novel that's boldly romantic and unabashedly appealing, a collage of legends from sources sacred and profane - from the Old Testament to the Old West, from the Gospels to police dramas. But Reuben's search for his brother is ultimately the search to understand the nature of a father's miraculous love. It's a journey you simply must not miss.http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0906/p1...

This book is definitely one of my favorites! Highly recommend!I hope to catch up on my reviews next week.....sigh....

One of the most satisfying novels I have read.

4.5 starsPeace Like A River is the second novel I've read by the highly talented Leif Enger and it most definitely will not be my last. He truly is a gifted writer delivering magical phraseology and a charming way with words. In the hands of a different author this may have been a gruesome story, perhaps even a dismal one yet Enger produced an exceptional character driven tale filled with hope and possibility. He perfectly captured the essence of Rueben (Rube) the 11 year old narrator as he navigated his way through the pivotal events of a family trauma and his life threatening asthma. It is clear Rueben adores his family. They are a faith driven bunch, lead by the word of the Lord and if we are to believe him, his father has been known to work miracles. His admiration for younger sister Swede, is apparent every time he mentions her. In fact, if I took his accounts at face value, I'd say she was a child prodigy. For a nine year old girl she seemed highly literate with a rare wisdom. Rube clearly adored, perhaps even idolised, older brother Davy and desperately misses him. At 17, Davy took the law into his own hands when two boys continually threatened the safety and wellbeing of his family. Having been charged with murder Davy escaped the holding cells and went on the run. Much of the story revolves around the impact of these events on their family.Rueben was a highly likeable character, as was his family - even his outlaw brother Davy. The story flowed like a gently meandering river yet it was not without rapids. There was so much to like about this book and at the top of the list was the writing. Thanks to my GR friend Celia for directing me toward this book. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and highly recommend it.