Virgil Wander

A man seeks to rediscover his broken Midwestern community in "a fast-paced, humorous and mystical novel about hope, friendship, love and the relationship between a town and its people" by the New York Times–bestselling author of Peace Like a River (BookPage).

Movie house owner Virgil Wander is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Though Virgil survives, his language and memory are altered. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together the past.

He is helped by a cast of curious locals—from a stranger investigating the mystery of his disappeared son, to the vanished man's enchanting wife, to a local journalist who is Virgil's oldest friend. Into this community returns a shimmering prodigal son who may hold the key to reviving their town.

Leif Enger conjures a remarkable portrait of a region and its residents, who, for reasons of choice or circumstance, never made it out of their defunct industrial district. Carried aloft by quotidian pleasures including movies, fishing, necking in parked cars, playing baseball and falling in love, Virgil Wander is a journey into the heart of America's Upper Midwest.

"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." —The New York Times Book Review

"[Enger's] writing leaped out at me – it's so easy and so vivid and so powerful all at once, and his characters are instantly real." —Tana French, Vulture