Product Description

Set in Colorado in the 1980s, Plainsong tells the story of various Holt residents. There's teenager Victoria Roubideaux, pregnant and homeless, taken in by two ageing, shy and somewhat taciturn cattle-farming brothers -- and the changes wrought in all their lives as a result. Then there's high-school teacher and single-father, Tom Gutherie, who has two sons, Ike and Bobby, and a second chance at romance in the shape of colleague Maggie Jones.

Filled with unforgettable characters, Plainsong is both convincing and compelling; a glorious, eloquent waltz of a novel.

'Like all the best novels, Plainsong takes you into a world that is at once real and vividly imagined. Here is a poetry of landscape, a tender and passionate evocation of ordinary people in majestic country . . . written with a kind of compassion that makes it ultimately powerfully uplifting' Niall Williams

'With its gentle touch and simple, precise prose, Haruf's novel scores a direct hit on his readers' hearts. Plainsong is a perfectly formed, beautifully executed piece of writing that will stay with you long after you reluctantly put it down' Mariella Frostrup, Mail on Sunday

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29894 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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, plot wise; 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. --Mary Park

Review
"'Kent Harufs novel is a literary soap opera of the highest calibre...Haruf is a fine writer' The Times 'Plainsong is beautifully crafted, alive and quietly magnificent. I read it in one mesmerising sitting. I had no choice; it wouldn't let me go' Roddy Doyle 'A perfectly formed, beautifully executed piece of writing that will stay with you long after you reluctantly put it down' Mariella Frostrup, Mail on Sunday 'Here is a poetry of landscape, a tender and passionate evocation of ordinary people in majestic country...written with a kind of compassion that makes it ultimately powerfully uplifting' Niall Williams, author of Four Letters of Love"

About the Author

Kent Haruf is the author of Eventide and lives with his wife, Cathy, in the mountains in Colorado.

Customer Reviews

A must read
Plainsong is quite simply a must read book. Although you can't buy his other novels in the UK order them in from .com as they even surpass this brilliant book. As other people have reviewed on the hardback this is a book that will make you laugh outloud in parts (and I mean outloud) and break your heart at the same time. This is masterful storytelling - you are in awe of it! This book deserves the same kind of success as Angela's Ashes and Memoirs of a Geisha - read it and like me press it onto every friend you have - they will thank you for it!

One of the best books I have read this year
Kent Haruf has a style of writing that draws you into this book , I couldn't put it down.It was like watching a good movie.The characters were so real.I bought his other 2 books straight away on the strength of Plainsong.An inspiring Author who has become one of my favourites.

A compassionate and compelling novel.
Plainsong takes a simple very ordinary story of life in mid America and weaves a magic spell. The prose and dialogue are simple (obtusely the dialogue is not in inverted commas) in almost Hemingway-esque style - but from these basics Kent Haruf has created an exceptionally emotional novel.