a review of "Plainsong"[42]

Plainsong by Kent Haruf
(Knopf, ISBN 978-0375406188)

I know that I first heard about this book, which was published in 1999, by reading a review of it recently on some blog...but I can't remember where, and now, I can't find it. So whoever you are..thank you. Because this was a very enjoyable book and I thank you for pointing it out to me.

Holt, Colorado, the town Plainsong is set in, may seem on the surface to be a quiet, peaceful little town, but of course some issues are simmering below the surface. High school teacher Tom Guthrie is a solid, reliable man, raising his two young sons, Ike and Bobby, but these days he must do it without the assistance of his wife. In her depression, she has retreated to the guest room to spend her days in darkness. Soon she will move out of town, leaving behind her two confused young sons.

"Here was this man Tom Guthrie in Holt standing at the back window in the kitchen of his house smoking cigarettes and looking out over the back lot where the sun was just coming up. When the sun reached the top of the windmill, for a while he watched what it was doing, that increased reddening of sunrise along the steel blade and the tail vane above the wooden platform. After a time he put out the cigarette and went upstairs and walked past the closed door behind which she lay in bed in the darkened guest room sleeping or not and went down the hall to the glassy room over the kitchen where the two boys were."

At work, Tom is in a confrontation with a star football player, refusing to follow the principal's suggestion to just pass him along even if he is failing. Tom will pay a price for trying to hold the boy to some standards.

Then there is 17 year old student Victoria Roubideaux, who finds herself pregnant, deserted by the child's father and locked out of her house by her mother. Desperate, with no place to go, she turns for help to teacher Maggie Jones, who while herself dealing with an aged father who suffers from dementia, is a calm, strong force in our story. Maggie makes what at seems a very strange suggestion for the girl. She arranged for Victoria to move in with two elderly rancher brothers, Harold and Raymond McPheron. Orphaned quite young, they have spent their entire lived working the family cattle ranch, a good distance from town, never marrying. At first we may think it is an odd choice, but it seems Maggie understand somehow that providing a home for the girl will fulfill some void in the brother's lives as well. I must say that the McPheron 'boys' were simply delightful characters, so rough on the exterior and yet so sincere, so funny and ultimately oddly insightful.

And finally we have Maggie. She cares for her father without complaint, is a teacher at the school and living a quiet life, yet it seems she has had her own unfulfilled dreams that may still come true. Her role in the book is not that big, but in a way she is the linchpin in the lives of all these folks.

When I write out a bit of the outline of the plot, it sounds a bit soap-operaish, but the reality could not be further from the truth. This is a rather slow, deliberate book, all these going-ons presented in a very straightforward and even at times, stark way, each characters presenting their own point of view in separate chapters. As all these lives begin to intersect, it never seems forced but rather just inevitable and very right. These are all people whose natural families have in ways been destroyed and yet come to form their own, new connections. This is a story about the day to day struggle of ordinary people to live their lives, to make a living and raise their families while trying to do what is right and deal with the trials life has given them with dignity.

Plainsong is described in the opening of the book as “the unisonous vocal music used in the Christian church from the earliest time; any simple and unadorned melody or air.” Yes, simple and unadorned, all the various notes coming together to form a harmonious song, describes this book as well. Haruf's clean, direct and often very funny style is a pleasure to read. To a reader who has tired of one too many overblown, over elaborate books, the restrained writing is so refreshing to read. Plainsong is a moving, quiet and, at times, quite amusing book, with some memorable characters, a refreshing style and a story that will sneak up on you.

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Again, my thanks to my local library for use of this book.

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