Description
Book SynopsisMidwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander is cruising along at medium altitude when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of a cast of affable and curious locals - from Rune, a twinkling, pipe-smoking, kite-flying stranger investigating the mystery of his disappeared son; to Nadine, the reserved, enchanting wife of the vanished man, to Tom, a journalist and Virgil''s oldest friend; and various members of the Pea family who must confront tragedies of their own. Into this community returns a shimmering prodigal son who may hold the key to reviving their town.
With intelligent humor and captivating whimsy, Leif Enger conjures a remarkable portrait of a region and its residents, who, for reasons of choice or circumstance, never mad
Trade Review
Virgil's narration is a joy . . . Enger populates down-on-its-luck Greenstone with true characters and gives them diverting plotlines aplenty, but the focus of his bright and breathing third novel feels mostly like life itself, in all its smallness and bigness, and what it means to live a good one. * Booklist, starred review *
Enger's first novel in 10 years marks him out as a foremost stylist. His prose is rhapsodic, kaleidoscopic and - I'll say it - enviable. Even more enviable is the rare feat of writing a comedic literary novel that is also a page-turner. He's performing on a trapeze that not many others have even reached for . . . Virgil Wander is a lush crowd-pleaser about meaning and second chances and magic. And in these Trumpian times, isn't that just the kind of book and protagonist we're all searching for? * the New York Times *
