Song of Destiny

Song of Destiny

by Paul Legler
Song of Destiny

Overview

Song of Destiny by Paul Legler

Jake was the ultimate big brother: cool, suave with the girls, tough, and a Vietnam veteran. Peter, the younger brother, was always the “good kid,” eventually becoming a monk at St. John’s Abbey. But they came of age on the North Dakota plains at a time when sex, drugs, and rock & roll blasted onto the prairie. Thirty years later, neither brother can escape his past.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780878396856
Publisher: North Star Press of Saint Cloud
Publication date: 09/01/2013
Pages: 284
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Paul Legler grew up in rural North Dakota. Since then he has traveled the world, worked as a lawyer, served as a policy advisor in President Clinton’s Administration, and raised three fine children. He was educated at the University of North Dakota, University of Minnesota, and Harvard University. He and his wife currently live near Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he works as a writer and public policy consultant

What People are Saying About This

Nicole Helget

“Paul Legler's Song of Destiny is a wise knitting of a stoic family's troubling disintegration and penitent redemption in the starkest of places and darkest of times. Revealed with a compassionate eye and generous hand, Legler's prose will guide you through the coldest of Dakota snows.” --Nicole Helget, author of The Turtle Catcher

James Corcoran

“In Song of Destiny, Paul Legler vividly captures the harshness and beauty of the Great Plains and of the lives of two brothers shaped by it.” --James Corcoran, author of Bitter Harvest

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Song of Destiny 5 out of 5 based on 0 ratings. 2 reviews.
Anonymous More than 1 year ago
A beautifully written book about life on the plains during a turbulent period of time.
Gina Clark More than 1 year ago
From the first sentence, "My grandfather used to say that the dust of the plains settles into your flesh and bones and stays with you the rest of your life," this books shines with a compassion for humanity. The older brother goes off to war and has some horrific experiences. When he returns, he is a changed man and his family does not know how to deal with him. He leads a wild life and eventually commits a bank robbery. The novel's narrator is the younger brother who is propelled into life in a monastery by a series of events starting in his childhood and linked to his older brother. Over the course of the story, we learn why the two brothers take such different routes in life. Remarkably, the book manages to create empathy for both brothers and for the women who enter their lives as the story progresses. The novel's prose is beautifully crafted. The author effectively uses foreshadowing to keep the reader turning pages. But this is also a serious book that is multi-layered. It raises provoking questions about free will, destiny, and the existence of God. It would be a great book to discuss in a book club.