Leif Enger

What makes this book really good is all the layers - the West and cowboys and outlaws and writing and the pursuit and love and redemption. It's all mixed in there and told with a deft hand. The story is told in a curious mix of formality and preciseness and unique turn of phrase ("been shot to moist rags" was one that caught my imagination). I particularly liked the journey Monte makes - caught up in events, he continues on - risking everything to figure out who exactly he is when measured show more in a different kind of life. show less

Virgil Wander captured me from the first three paragraphs with its wry and gentle prose. It’s narrated by the title character, Virgil Wander, who has a very contrary name for a man who stays very close to home. His home is Greenstone, a town that seems to be on the receiving end of some karmic bad joke, so much so they decide to embrace their bad fortune with a Hard Luck Days festival. There is a loving acceptance of the curmudgeons and oddballs that strikes this former Minnesotan as show more absolutely authentic but may seem false to someone who didn’t grow up in the kind of communities that inspired Lake Wobegon.

Virgil is suffering some dislocation from an accident that should have killed him, driving off the North Shore Highway, he and his car shooting through the air and falling deep into Lake Superior. However, he was saved and now has some trouble with adjectives and balance. The serendipitous arrival of Rune, the unknown father of Alec Sandstrom, local baseball hero whose mysterious disappearance haunts Greenstone and its inhabitants. Alec was Virgil’s friend and since he really needs someone to stay with him in his forgetfulness, he invites Rune to stay with him.

This is a magical realist book. The realism is the slowly dying Greenstone, the impoverishment of failed industry, and how that breakdown manifests in people’s lives, their despair and desperation. The magic is manifested in Rune and his kites, the giant sturgeon who seems an active and knowing antagonist, the strangely malevolent Adam Leer who doesn’t overtly do or say anything untoward while leaving disaster in his wake.

I enjoyed Virgil Wander so much, though when I think on it after finishing, I realize that I loved it because I fell for the characters, especially for Virgil, Rune, and Bjorn, Rune’s grandson, and the wryly evocative language. In hindsight, the story is very much on the surface, sliding past being consequential with a smile. Usually, with so much talent and imagination, there’s a deeper story to tell. This is not deep, but it sure is fun.

I received a copy of Virgil Wander from the publisher through NetGalley.

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When I met Lark there were two things I had to do, two ideas to embrace or lose my chance. Reading was the first. I could read but rarely did. My parents, ahead of their time, had little use for books, so I grew up a knockabout. It's fair to say in my case size preceded sense. I wasn't a bully--well, probably sometimes. I'm not without regrets.

Rainy's a big guy with a kind heart and he and Lark have made a meaningful life for themselves in this dystopian version of the United States show more (dystopian, yet far too close to our present situation for comfortable reading). Lark, who was a librarian back when libraries existed, runs an illegal bookstore out of a bakery and Rainy plays bass guitar in a bar band on the weekends and picks up jobs here and there and fixes up a run down sailboat in between. They also rent out their attic room and it's a lodger who eventually brings ruin down on them, sending Rainy fleeing onto Lake Superior in that sailboat. What follows is Rainy as a Richard Kimble-Odysseus like character, landing in different places along the coast as he works his way toward the Slate Islands, where he and Lark once traveled.

Look out the window, will you? At the clouds, ripped at the edges and moving fast. The sea like a shroud. The eaves bare of ravens, every bird flown.

Leif Enger's writing style is engaging and he imbues every character and situation with humanity and heart. Rainy is an impossible guy not to love, he's so pure of heart and works so hard to do the right thing. He is eventually joined with by Pippi Longstocking-like sidekick, who gives him someone to protect, and she's a lovely addition to the story, which often feels episodic in nature. While Enger's writing is solid, he sometimes goes a little far with Rainy's ability to read deep emotions into quick glances at people he's never met.

I waved a greeting she did not return. Her eyes were clear and farcical and I fell short in her assessment. The tip of her cigarette brightened.

But that's a quibble in a story so engaging and well-paced as this one. show less

Virgil Wander should be dead. In fact, rumor has it that he did die when his car sailed through a retaining wall in a blizzard, ending up in the churning icy waters of Lake Superior. In reality, he was saved by the unlikely presence and courage of a local salvage yard operator who fished him out of his sinking Pontiac. The incident has left Virgil concussed and disoriented, at a loss for adjectives, and more than a little accident-prone. It has also, understandably, changed his outlook on show more life considerably. Virgil, and his hometown of Greenstone, Minnesota, both seem headed toward a vague and pointless future until Rune Eliasson, an old Norwegian with mad kite-designing skills, shows up looking for information about a man who disappeared years ago. This novel is full of slightly off-plumb characters, at least one of whom is utterly creepy in an unfathomable way. It took me a little while to get invested in them, but once I did, I couldn't stop hoping for a happy ending for most of them. It also made me a little ashamed of complaining about NE PA winters... show less