PEACE LIKE A RIVER (2008)

A young man seeks refuge in the windblown Badlands, fleeing his 1960s Minnesota small town where trumped-up murder charges loom. Reuben, an 11-year- old asthmatic, narrates the family's search for their fallen older brother. His gentle father and poet younger sister round out their desperate posse. This is a patient coming-of-age story, framed largely by the Bible and other literary masterpieces. The author grandly tips his hat to the old heroes of children's classics: Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, paperback Western greats like Zane Grey and Frank O'Rourke. Enger occasionally gets swept away, swirl as he does in old-fashioned rhapsody, and leaves the rudderless reader behind. But there are miracles in this book, of faith and family and place, that come alive by the breathless climax.