FORT KENT ME: 3/18/10 UMFK Presidental Speaker Series featuring Peter Behrens
His first novel, The Law of Dreams, is widely acclaimed, and was awarded Canada's prestigious Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in 2006 . . .
The New York Times Book Review calls The Law of Dreams "absorbing, unsparing and beautifully written . . . a masterly novel" (December 10, 2006).
From the Irish Independent (Dublin) Sunday, Aug. 11 2007: ". . . it is one of those rare books that comes along from time to time that makes you feel that you are in the presence of greatness: a gifted storyteller with a truly compelling story to tell . . . "
"An event of uncommon depth and artistry . . . stunning music, evocative readings, incomparable songs. Do not miss it."
—The Ellsworth American, 3/26/09
The Irish Arts Center announces the New York premiere of A TERRIBLE BEAUTY, a live performance inspired by the award-winning novel The Law of Dreams by . . .
Le Magazine des Livres (Paris) no.14
Fevrier/Mars 2009
"Peter Behrens, La maitrise du temps et du style"
"Et si 2008 nous était conté en 20 livres, que lirions-nous? Certainement le premier roman de Peter Behrens (La loi des rêves, Christian Bourgois), une des révélations littéraires de l’an passé . . ." — Bertrand du Chambon
The Washington Post
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Page B01, "Outlook" Section
"Harry Potter and the Death of Reading"
". . . My favorite [book of 2006] was 'The Law of Dreams,' a first novel by a 52-year-old writer named Peter Behrens. It's the story of an orphaned boy who doesn't know why he survived the evil force that killed his parents — and left him scarred. Set during the Irish potato famine of 1847, it's not a fantasy, and it's not for children, but there are plenty of monsters here, and Behrens writes in a style that's pure magic." — Ron Charles, Senior Editor of the Washington Post Book World
Book News
June 2008
"Getting it Right"
The National Book Critics Circle Awards: A Retrospective
". . . In 2007, for me these included books on the Beatles, Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, a biography of baseball executive Branch Rickey and Peter Behrens’ novel, The Law of Dreams." — John Freeman
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
January 2008
". . . There are passages of idyllic beauty, and a strange hard poetry of language; for example when landscapes are described, or the consciousness of a lost boy longing for love and connection . . . Behrens upholds the tension all the way through this voluminous, voluptuous page-turner of a novel. . . . In Brigitte Walitzek he found a German translator to match his epic tone."
The Observer (London)
Sept 2, 2007
"How Did We Miss These?"
"We asked 50 celebrated writers to nominate their favourite brilliant but underrated novels . . .
"This hauntingly bloody and beautiful novel has been garlanded with praise and prizes in Behrens's native Canada . . . there's a euphoric uplift in its pages, a poetic energy in the style which completely bowled me over. Such a messy, delirious, risky, big-hearted book; such a treat " — Nicci Gerrard
" . . . If the novel were judged solely on the language, precise and poetic in a way that cuts into the heart like a razor, no one could deny Behrens’ brilliance. But for those readers sometimes left a little cold by the technical virtuosity of lyrical Canadian novelists like Anne Michaels or Michael Ondaatje, it’s worth pointing out that Behrens can also spin a wild yarn. The Law of Dreams is a novel with as much craft as art, an adventure tale as epic and gripping as a modern Dickens . . ." — Juliet Waters
The Law of Dreams
"Superb. An emotional epic done in shadow-show, a lucid dream of the past, bearing echoes of Melville and Ondaatje, conveying scents and shimmers of a vanished world under the skin of our own."
