He deftly shapes his text so that the reader sees epiphanies in everyday occurrences. Such writing can seem almost childlike in its simplicity, but Kent Haruf is never casual. There were tall fir trees and big ponderosas and aspens along the creek.” The clear icy water with brook trout holed up in the hollows below the rocks. There were Rocky Mountain sheep along the road, all ewes with short sharp horns. The short sentences stretch into lyrical evocation as their lives expand: “They drove up the highway through the Arkansas River canyon, the beautiful fast water, steep red jagged cliffs on each side. It’s clear that both have hard events in their past - traumatic in Addie’s case - but now life is becoming more joyous for both of them. In their nighttime conversations Louis and Addie tell each other how they met their spouses, where they lived, what they worked at and enjoyed. Sorrows are being soothed lives are being built - and not just Jamie’s. He’s nervous without his mother, but Addie and Louis nurture him by reading stories, teaching him to use a catcher’s mitt, even buying him a dog. He has been sent to stay with Addie because his parents’ marriage is coming apart. Similar passages of serious, almost plodding, description cover the trips Louis and Addie begin to take: to a cafe for lunch, to a softball game with a neighbor, then with Addie’s grandson Jamie to a campsite by a river. He trimmed his fingernails and toenails and at dark went out the back door and walked up the back alley carrying a paper sack with his pajamas and toothbrush inside.” That first night, for example, Louis’ preparations are mundane, but their patient description suggests his anxiety: “He ate a light supper, just a sandwich and a glass of milk, he didn’t want to feel heavy and laden in her bed, and then took a long hot shower and scrubbed himself thoroughly. His novels - of which there are only six, including the trilogy “Plainsong,” “Eventide” and “Benediction” - are a lesson in controlled writing, gorgeous character development, intensely descriptive settings that just put you right there, and sublime plot finesse.So begins a relationship whose blossoming is delicately recorded in pellucid language that casts its glow over ordinary objects and daily events, and somehow miraculously captures the bud and bloom of scarcely expressible feelings. Haruf, who was born in Pueblo and died in Salida in 2014 at the age of 71, had a poignant, graceful way to his storytelling and his view of Colorado’s Eastern Plains and of Western temperament. In a 2013 review of another Haruf novel, “Benediction,” the Denver Post’s Tucker Shaw wrote: “Colorado author Kent Haruf has an extraordinary grasp of quiet.” My favorite is Kent Haruf, author of “Plainsong.” Each week, we will offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more.Ĭolorado is home to many amazing authors, among them Peter Heller (“The Dog Stars”), Helen Thorpe (“The Newcomers”), John Dunning (the Cliff Janeway series), Margaret Coel (the Wind River series), and our own regional book reviewer Sandra Dallas (who has written 16 adult novels to date, including her latest, “Little Souls,” due out this month). Sunday, July 2nd 2023 Home Page Close MenuĮditor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites.
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