Search - Plainsong

What a fine book this is. Such a great story that evokes a time and a place so perfectly and entwines several stories seamlessly. Touching and heartwarming without being the least bit schmaltzy.

REALLY ENJOYED THE WAY THE BOOK IS STRUCTURED, AS WELL AS THE PLAIN-SPEAKING, YET COMPLEX CHARACTERS.

A story of several 'down home' type people including a pregnant teen, and two rough but very likable bachelor farmers, two abandoned boys and more. Ralistic and sometimes sad, ends on an optimistic note.

Fabulous book -- not normally my style and I adored it. Book 1 in the series.

Plainsong, according to Kent Haruf's epigraph, is "any simple and unadorned melody or air." It's a perfect description of this lovely, rough-edged book, set on the very edge of the Colorado plains. Tom Guthrie is a high school teacher whose wife can't--or won't--get out of bed; the McPherons are two bachelor brothers who know little about the world beyond their farm gate; Victoria Roubideaux is a pregnant 17-year-old with no place to turn. Their lives parallel each other in much the same way any small-town lives would--until Maggie Jones, another teacher, makes them intersect. Even as she tries to draw Guthrie out of his black cloud, she sends Victoria to live with the two elderly McPheron brothers, who know far more about cattle than about teenage girls. Trying to console her when she think she's hurt her baby, the best lie they can come up with is this: "I knew of a heifer we had one time that was carrying a calf, and she got a length of fencewire down her some way and it never hurt her or the calf."
Holt, Colorado, is the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone's business before that business even happens. In a way, that's true of the book, too. There's not a lot of suspense here, plotwise; you can see each narrative twist and turn coming several miles down the pike. What Plainsong has instead is note-perfect dialogue, surrounded by prose that's straightforward yet rich in particulars: "a woman walking a white lapdog on a piece of ribbon," glimpsed from a car window; the boys' mother, her face "as pale as schoolhouse chalk"; the smells of hay and manure, the variations of prairie light. Even the novel's larger questions are sized to a domestic scale. Will Guthrie find love? Will Victoria run away with the father of her baby? Will the McPherons learn to hold a conversation? But in this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and Plainsong manages to capture nothing less than an entire world--fencing pliers, calf-pullers, and all. Kent Haruf has a gorgeous ear, and a knack for rendering the simple complex.

Absolutely stunning novel set in Eastern Colorado--equally appealing to those who love "literature" and those who love "westerns."

Real good!

Another good book from this author.

A really compelling read. A New York Times Notable Book and A New Yorker Book Award Finalist. I read it for my Book Group and it was a great discussion book.

I love the characters in this book. And the way the author tells the story is both relaxing and enjoyable. The ending did leave me wondering what would happen next for the characters.

Lovely story of ordinary people facing change and finding unlikely connections -- lyrical prose -- I stopped often to savor a paragraph several times.

Haruf's writing reminded me of other favorite authors : Stephen King and Lawrence Block.Each chapter was about a different character or household. They all live in the same town and their stories overlapped. It was fun to piece together information about the other characters from their differing perspectives.

I didn't expect there to be graphic detail about sex before even the first 1/4th of the book. I was disappointed. The reviews talked about family, but didn't include this. I may be an old "fuddy-duddy" but that's not for me.

"Plainsong" is possibly the most touching and one of the most memorable novels I have ever read. This is an absolutely lovely story that reassures one of the underlying good in human nature. This one stays with you long after finishing the last page.

Wonderfully involving and very touching without being maudlin. A great read ... I recently received the sequel from another swapper. Looking forward to it!

A New York Times Notable Book. A New Yorker Book Award Finalist. "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 bachelors."

ambitious but never seeming so kent haruf reveals a whole community as he intrveavs the stories of a pregnant high school girl,a lonely tecaher, apair of boys abandoned by their mother,and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. from simple elements,haruf avhieves a novell of widom and grace.

Loved this one!Sweet and funny family saga.

Enjoyable read about small town life.

Simple and calming, straight-forward. For an easy read, or a gift for a pre-teen.