Plainsong
By Kent Haruf
(Vintage, Paperback, 9780375705854, 320pp.)
Publication Date: August 22, 2000
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"Ambitious, but never seeming so, Kent Haruf reveals a whole community as he interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. From simple elements, Haruf achieves a novel of wisdom and grace--a narrative that builds in strength and feeling until, as in a choral chant, the voices in the book surround, transport, and lift the reader off the ground."
-FROM THE CITATION FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Kent Haruf lives with his wife, Cathy, in Illinois and Colorado.
"A novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely . . . it has the power to exalt the reader." --The New York Times Book Review
"Resonant and meaningful . . . . A song of praise in honor of the lives it chronicles [and] a story about people's ability to adapt and redeem themselves, to heal the wounds of isolation by moving, gropingly and imperfectly, toward community." --Richard Tillinghast, The Washington Post Book World
"A compelling and compassionate novel. . . . [With] his sheer assurance as a storyteller, [Mr. Haruf] has conjured up an entire community, and ineluctably immersed the reader in its dramas." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"A work as flawlessly unified as a short story by Poe or Chekhov." --Jon Hassler, Chicago Tribune
"Haunting, virtuosic, inimitable." --Sarah Saffian, San Francisco Chronicle
"If the novelist invents a world, then Mr. Haruf has shaped a place of enormous goodness... The story itself--spare, unsentimental, rooted in action--honors the values of the community it describes." --Lisa Michaels,
"A moving look at our capacity for both pointless cruelty and simple decency, our ability to walk out of the wreckage of one family and build a stronger one where that one used to stand." --Jeff Giles, Newsweek
"A work as flawlessly unified as a short story by Poe or Chekhov." --Jon Hassler, Chicago Tribune
This book is on these lists:
Lacey-bree's Wish List by lacey-breeJeanlouise's Wish List by jeanlouise
Easy reading by jeanlouise
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