Virgil Wander, by Leif Enger

This deceptively charming novel has hidden depths, like Lake Superior, which is a main character in the book.  Virgil Wander is a middle-aged man stuck in the dying, bad luck,  mining town of Greenstone, Minnesota.  It is north of Duluth on the rocky shores of this great inland sea, and as the story opens, Virgil has just miraculously been saved from certain death when his Pontiac sails off a road into the lake.  Rescued by Marcus Jetty, who owns the local salvage and junk yard, he is dazed by the experience but slowly regaining his strength and the words he has lost to mild traumatic brain injury.  He runs the local failing cinema, the Empress Theater, which he lives above.  He also functions as the City Clerk. It is significant that the road he ran off is Highway 61, and yes, Bob Dylan does wander into the story, as does Rune, a kite-flying Norwegian seeking  information about the son he never knew he had.   That son, Alex Sandstrom, a minor league baseball phenom, disappeared in a light plane over the lake years before the main action of the story, leaving behind his beautiful wife, Nadine, and son, Bjorn, now a teenager.  There is more than a hint of Lake Woebegone in the book, but Enger is a more compassionate and interesting writer than Kellior, who can veer from saccharine into nasty and scatological.  Not that I don’t still enjoy Garrison, who is now in disgrace…  In addition to a Field of Dreams and The natural  vibes, there’s also a mythic Moby Dick like sturgeon; an evil filmmaker, who seems always to be in town when bad things happen; and the unique Rune who, like his name, is magical.  A lovely book in many ways – recommended.  300 pp.