This book remained unread on my bookshelf for months, because, I think, of its dismal cover: I have a proof copy. What a mistake. This beautifully written, spare, stark book takes as its theme the loosely intermingled lives of various abandoned souls who live in the imagined town of Holt, Colorado.
There's teenage Victoria, pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend; Tom Guthrie, who wife has retreated into deep depression, leaving him with his solemn and perforce self-sufficient young boys, Ike and Bobby; the elderly McPheron brothers, orphaned young, who take Victoria in; infirm Iva Stearn, to whom the young boys deliver the local paper. Thse isolated people display dignity and stoicism in their difficulties, and struggle towards some sense of connection and community.
Holt seems a pretty bleak town, and the landscape that surrounds it too. Haruf's descriptions are always understated, always telling. His characters maintain their privacy, whilst allowing us to care about the ultimately optimistic conclusion of the book. It's a book that lingers in the memory. Read it
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