Recipes and Recommendations for Imbibing Beauty through Books and Beverages
By Annie Nardone
Pages, Pints, and Pours brings you into the magic and mystery of a small midwestern town where you will meet a quirky cast of dreamers, common folk, and one monster fish.
The Pages: Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
“If I were to pinpoint when the world began reorganizing itself—that is, when my seeing of it began to shift—it would be the day a stranger named Rune blew into our bad luck town of Greenstone, Minnesota, like a spark from the boreal gloom.”
—Leif Enger, Virgil Wander
I fell in literary love with native Minnesotan Leif Enger’s first novel, Peace Like a River. I was born and raised in Minnesota, so his writing reflects the peculiarities of our home state and resonates with my soul. While the characters’ struggles and joys are universal to the human experience, they are depicted with homespun accuracy and the Minnesotan tropes are spot on.
Enger’s Virgil Wander settles into that comfortable, albeit slightly odd and humorous, place in our imagination. Virgil Wander narrates his own story set in Greenstone, Minnesota. The first-person prose is an especially clever authorial choice because the reader is treated to stream-of-consciousness via Virgil’s droll narration.
We begin the novel with the recounting of Virgil’s recent auto accident: an epic skid into frigid Lake Superior, resulting in his partial amnesia. In typical midwestern fashion, he isn’t traumatized—no “cold panic, clenching denial, a magician’s bouquet of vibrant regrets”—just a vague recollection of rescue from his sinking car by Marcus Jetty, the town mechanic. Unable to safely function on his own, Virgil temporarily lodges with his best friend Beeman, “a massive garrulous North Dakotan of Samoan ancestry” and his pet raccoon, Genghis. Virgil navigates through his days, slowly retrieving words and memories, operating the Empress Theater that features classic films, and reconnecting his relationships in his community. There are several interconnected storylines: the mystery of a missing man, a prodigal son, a kite-flying stranger, and a legendary killer sturgeon. And the story just gets better.
People native to Minnesota have a unique nature—a generous splash of Scandinavian stoicism (if you are familiar with the series How to Train a Dragon, you’ll remember that Hiccup’s dad’s name is, in fact, Stoick the Vast) and a heavy helping of practicality. Some of this may come from our Nordic bloodline, a people of unwavering determination, creativity, and steadfast patience. Enger flawlessly weaves these qualities into the individual characters and their community. They have their joys and sorrows, but nothing defeats them.
Virgil Wander is the most accurate depiction of basic Midwest humor and small-town life I’ve ever found. It’s just so sensible. And endearingly funny. If you have read Peace Like a River, you know the honesty and winsomeness of his storytelling. We fall in love with the characters because we feel that we have known them in our own lives.
Reminiscent of the radio program, Prairie Home Companion and its fictional town of Lake Wobegon, Enger’s ethereal descriptions and dialogue draw you into the magical ordinary-ness of this story. You and I will see some of our life journey mirrored in the people of Greenstone, in sadness, difficulty, and yearning; but also in the beauty of a starry sky and lights on Main Street. There is loneliness at times, broken by small town celebrations with a tightly knit community. In the daily decisions to persevere, Virgil and the townsfolk find contentment. You don’t need to be fancy to have a fine life. Leif Enger will remind you that there is awe and beauty in the small things and simple friendships.
“We all dream of finding but what’s wrong with looking? When the sun rises we’ll know what to do.”
All quotes from Leif Enger, Virgil Wander (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018).
PINTS AND POURS
In Virgil Wander, Rune, the Finnish kite maker, keeps a “bottle of akevitt” (aquavit) on hand for emergencies, so this is a perfect time to return to that Norse spirit I mentioned in my previous Pages, Pints, and Pours and the book Kristin Lavransdatter.
North Star
2 shots Aquavit
1 shot sweet white wine
½ shot triple sec
Juice of 1/2 lemon
½ shot wild honey syrup (syrup= combine 3 parts honey to 1 part water)
Fill cocktail shaker with ice and add all ingredients. Shake and strain into an old fashioned glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with orange or lemon slice.
SHIRLEY TEMPLE
The classic mocktail of childhood.
8 oz. ginger ale
2 T grenadine syrup
2 maraschino cherries with stems.
Put 2-3 ice cubes in a tall glass, then add grenadine and ginger ale. Stir. Garnish with cherries.
Annie Nardone is a lifelong bibliophile with a special devotion to the Inklings and medieval authors. She is a Fellow with the C.S. Lewis Institute and holds an M.A. in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Christian University. Annie is a writer for Cultivating Oaks Press and An Unexpected Journal. Her writing can also be found at Square Halo Press, Rabbit Room Press, Clarendon Press U.K., Calla Press, and Poetica. Annie is a Master Teacher with HSLDA and Kepler Education and strives to help her students see holiness in everyday life and art. She lives in Florida with her husband and six cats, appreciates the perfect cup of tea, an expansive library, and the beach with family.
