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Plainsong (Vintage Contemporaries)
by Kent Haruf

Plainsong (Vintage Contemporaries) Cover

About This Book

ISBN13: 9780375705854
ISBN10: 0375705856
Condition: Standard
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Powells.com Staff Pick

Just before Plainsong really hit big, I interviewed Kent Haruf for a now-defunct magazine called Boswell; and after speaking to Mr. Haruf for an hour, caught a glimpse of the modest spirit behind this wise novel. The story is written with deep humility, a plain and simple song, as the title suggests ? though deceptively so. I grew up in a small farming town, and can honestly say I have known every one of the characters in Plainsong/i>, who, though they live in more simple surroundings, lead lives as complex as any other. Like Alistair Macleod, Kent Haruf has got the "decent writing" thing down, and his characters are delightful. Fidel, Powells.com

This National Book Award finalist is recommended for those who seek the pure beauty of raw human interaction, humility, and grace. Plainsong is the story of human beings struggling to come together as a family. In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats, first to the bedroom, then altogether. Plainsong is definitely a book you can't put it down.
Recommended by Linda, Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

"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."<BR>-FROM THE CITATION FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Review:

"A novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely . . . it has the power to exalt the reader." --The New York Times Book Review

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

Review:

"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

Review:

"A work as flawlessly unified as a short story by Poe or Chekhov." --Jon Hassler, Chicago Tribune

Review:

"Haunting, virtuosic, inimitable." --Sarah Saffian, San Francisco Chronicle

Review:

"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,

Synopsis:

From the unsettled lives of three people emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together. Utterly true to the rhythms and patterns of life, "Plainsong" is a heartfelt story of family and romance, tribulation, and tenacity. "A novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader".--Verlyn Klinkenborg, "The New York Times Book Review".

Synopsis:

"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

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About the Author

Kent Haruf lives with his wife, Cathy, in Illinois and Colorado.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Jeane, April 2, 2008 (view all comments by Jeane)
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.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780375705854
Author:
Haruf, Kent
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Location:
New York :
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
City and town life
Subject:
Family
Subject:
Colorado
Subject:
Sagas
Subject:
Family saga
Subject:
Domestic fiction
Edition Description:
Paperback
Series:
Vintage Contemporaries (Paperback)
Series Volume:
1992
Publication Date:
August 2000
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
320
Dimensions:
800x538x70 54
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