SQJ Taipei

This is a GREAT book.

I am saddened when I see such a divide between Christian and secular art. I don’t see why each can’t stand on its own…

I’m not trying to criticize people and companies who run Christian bookstores… because they have filled a need… a gap in the marketplace.

Why am I mentioning all this?

Leif Enger’s Peace Like a River is bridging the gap… my friend Bart bought it in an airport in the USA and chose it because the title seemed an obvious reference to the classic hymn, “It Is Well”.

The book wasn’t in a segregated Christian corner of the shop… and it isn’t published by one of the big Christian Publishing Houses… it is just there on the shelf with all the other bestsellers and has the usual quotes from newspapers and magazines on the cover… because this book is GREAT. Not a great Christian novel… but a great novel. period.

The Christian themes of love, devotion, hope, forgiveness, tolerance, redemption, faith, and justice are woven throughout… and yet only the most hardened anti-Christian zealot could admit that this book did not move them and cause them to think of eternal issues.

The story centers on a single father and 2 of his children as they travel the northern United States looking for a 3rd child - a son - who is on the run. The characters are real and the story is superb. Their faith in God is presented basically as I believe anyone’s faith should truly exist… grounded in reality… facts of life… and with a rough edge from where the easy and simple and clean faith of “religion” gets dulled and marred and scratched up from constantly banging up against things that happen in real life… the good and the bad.

I repeatedly caught myself thinking that I was reading a non-fiction account of some historical event. The cover of the book gives this quote from Andrew Roe of the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Peace Like a River serves as a reminder of why we read fiction to begin with.”

The characters are all appealing… but I’ll mention this about the youngest child, Swede. She is about 8 years old and really “steals the scene” on many occasions… throughout the book. As I was reading, I kept thinking of some other strong young female characters in literature (Fern in Charlotte’s Web, Anne in Anne of Green Gables, the girl from A Little Princess, etc. ) and I found myself thinking of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird most of all. After I finished the book, I flipped to the front and started reading all the quotes and found that I was not alone in thinking of Scout… Gail Pennington from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote:

“The Lands are such a fascinating family that they could easily populate a memorable book even with no plot to speak of. Swede… may be literature’s most unforgetable little girl since Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.”

I can’t recommend a book more highly than this one. I beg Leif Enger to keep writing and I encourage each one who reads this post to get this book and set aside some time to enjoy it. If you have a book club… or have ever wanted to start one… this book is PERFECT for such a setting.

Click on the picture below for a link to the book at Amazon.com