Peace Like a River: A Novel

by Leif Enger

It sure is one thing to say you’re at war with this whole world and stick your chest out believing it, but when the world shows up with its crushing numbers and its predatory knowledge, it is another thing completely.

We see a newborn moth unwrapping itself and announce, Look, children, a miracle! But let an irreversible wound be knit back to seamlessness? We won’t even see it, though we look at it every day.

At that moment there was nothing—no valiant history or hopeful future—half worth my sister’s pardon. Listening to Dad’s guitar, halting yet lovely in the search for phrasing, I thought: Fair is whatever God wants to do.