New York Review of Books Review
WHAT A WONDROUS MIRACLE, to Wake Up, memory muddled, slightly unmoored, with just the task of relearning yourself, your friends, your hometown nestled along the ruggedly beautiful shores of Lake Superior. Everything that once was rundown and rusted suddenly seems new and exotic, buffed to a striking shine. Such is the plight of Virgil Wander, who gives Leif Enger's new novel its name and is one of the most engaging protagonists I've encountered in years. Wander is an orphan, a fallen seminarian, a movie-theater owner. After his car plunges off a cliff into the icy waters of the lake below, his memory and capacity for language are compromised. The world of fiction has always rewarded the obsession, the fetish, and "Virgil Wander" is jam-packed with such eccentricities - baseball, surfing, beachcombing, fishing, classic films, taxidermy, Jeep Wagoneers. Reading the novel is like walking into your beloved uncle's bachelor pad: Every page is packed with curios and brimming with delightful nostalgia. But the nostalgia is well modulated. As Virgil's memory begins to resolve, so does the glimmer of his small town begin to fade. Greenstone, Minn., is a Rust Belt port, a little pockmark along Highway 61 up to Canada. Is it beautiful? Sure, but mostly because of the lake and seasons. Its monolithic ore dock is an everyday reminder of the town's decay, as are the vacancies along Main Street and Virgil's own derelict movie theater. Against this richly drawn background, Enger weaves in a few different strands, including some that explore notions of fatherlessness and orphanhood. Every narrative thread is infused with the magical. Greenstone is a place where phantoms lurk out on the big lake, where old men fly kites into the fangs of lightning and where there's always an outside chance Bob Dylan might stroll onto the Main Street stage. Enger has endowed Minnesota's North Shore with a luminousness reminiscent of Annie Proulx's Newfoundland. It is a strange time to live in small-town America. For those of us far from America's big cities, there is a sense that we're somehow culpable for Trump, that we don't get it, that we're behind the times. There is a mystery to why we persist, why we stay when everyone else leaves. Enger, I think, feels that the hangers-on believe. They're fighters and romantics; they're outdoorspeople. Many of them are simply determined to avoid lights and noise and crowds. Enger's first novel in 10 years marks him 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. That said, some of Enger's stylistic choices come with consequences. I've lived in the Midwest my whole life and never once, for example, heard a 16-yearold gas-station attendant utter the word "ghastly." Moments like this pull the reader out of an otherwise spellbinding story. Enger deserves to be mentioned alongside the likes of Richard Russo and Thomas McGuane. "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? NICKOLAS BUTLER'S next novel, "Little Faith," will be published in March. Greenstone is a place where phantoms lurk out on the big lake.
Library Journal Review
In his long-awaited new novel, Enger (Peace Like a River) takes us on one man's moving journey of renewal after his car skids on an icy road and lands in Lake Superior. Virgil Wander escapes with short-term memory loss, followed by visions of a dark figure no one else can see. For 25 years an unassuming resident of Greenstone, MN, a once vibrant town now in decline, Virgil works part-time as a city clerk and is the proud owner of the Empress Theater, which shows classic movies. Strangely, he feels the preaccident Virgil, self-effacing and apologetic, died in the accident; the vigorous new Virgil won't be pushed around. After almost burning down his kitchen, he takes on a curious roommate, Rune Eliassen, who arrives on a mission to find his missing son, Alec, a semifamous baseball player who took off from Greenstone in a small plane and never returned. VERDICT With an unexpected dry wit, Enger pens a loosely woven plot about plucky Greenstone residents working to rejuvenate their town but finding a bonus in their own renewed enthusiasm for life. Surprises and delights throughout; definitely worth waiting for. [See Prepub Alert, 4/19/18.]-Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
