Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

My most recent book is one that I've had in my collection for some time but kept putting off reading - not sure why. In fact, I accidentally bought it twice because I had forgotten it even existed in my bookshelves (Mom, this was the one I gave to you last time I was there). Anyway, it was well worth the wait. Leif Enger is one of those writer's who's ability to put words together amaze me. There were times I would have to go back and reread sentences because they sort of sang off the page and were just (though it sounds corny) beautiful.
Anyway, Peace Like a River is a novel about a family dealing with (of course) a tragedy. It's told through the eyes and voice of 11-year old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy who believes in miracles. Along with his father (Jeremiah - performer of miracles) and sister, (Swede a 9-year old writer, mature beyond her years), Reuben ends up on a cross-country search for his much loved brother Davy who has been charged with the murder of two derelict and once potentially violent boys. The trip turns out to be an epiphany for each family member but more importantly, it reveals that love is the only miracle that one needs to survive the cards that life can sometimes deal.
I loved this book. I'm not some artsy fartsy reader who quotes Hemingway or Dante or Thoreau. Reading some of the words on these pages, however, left me in awe, making me want to memorize them just so I could recall them later. Really - this guy can write! I wonder sometimes how people like Enger can come up with such strings of words that sound so poetic. For instance - randomly opening the book and pointing at a sentence:  "Tommy clawed the floor, bawling incomprehensibly and his eyes rolled, and there was genuine terror inside his voice, and I knew with certainty he was seeing all the devils waiting for him, whetting their long knives, that he could hear their gabbling shrieks, that the smell of sulfur so quick in the room issued from some dim mouthlike chamber panting after his soul."

Can't you just see it? I am amazed by this book. It puts someone like me in my place, thinking I could ever write so beautifully. Of course, I'm not the wordy poetic type but I wouldn't mind if I were. Anyway, read the book if you're so inclined...it was a doozie!