Nov 23, 2007

Plainsong

by Kent Haruf

This is a quietly elegant portrait of a farming community in Holt, Colorado. It focuses on half a dozen characters: a high school history teacher whose depressed wife leaves him to raise two young boys alone, a shy teenage girl who becomes pregnant and decides to run away from home, and two crusty bachelor brothers who run a farm together. Another teacher in the same school becomes the catylist for all these characters' solitary lives to become intertwined and connected. Plainsong is full of guilt and pain, quiet passion and deeply felt compassion. It is a wonderful portrayal of how people's lives touch one another- for good more than ill.

Incidentally, I enjoyed this book better than The Tie That Binds.

Rating: 3/5                    310 pages, 1999

2 comments:

  1. I recently added this book to my TBR collection, I am glad to hear it is worth reading. Thanks for the review.

    You know, I just now noticed that the corner of your blog page is dog eared. :-) Talk about being slow! I love it!

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  2. I really enjoyed this book; I especially liked the old bachelors!

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