Plainsong

Set in Kent Haruf’s fictional landscape of Holt County, Colorado, Plainsong is a story of simple lives told with extraordinary empathy.‘Beautifully crafted, alive and quietly magnificent’ – Roddy Doyle, author of The Commitments‘So delicate and lovely that it has the power to exalt the reader’ – The New York TimesTom Guthrie is struggling to bring up his two young sons alone and, in the same town, school girl Victoria Roubideaux is pregnant and homeless. Brothers Harold and Raymond McPheron – gentle, solitary, gruff and unpolished – agree to take Victoria in, unaware that their lives will change forever.Part of the Picador Collection, Plainsong is an undeniable classic that explores the grace and hope of every human life and mankind’s infinite capacity for love. It is a novel of haunting beauty from one of America’s greatest writers.‘Plainsong is nothing short of a revelation’ – Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls‘Fans of this book have been nothing less than devotional in their praise of Kent Haruf’ – The Times Literary Supplement

Perfectly formed, beautifully executed., Beautifully crafted, alive and quietly magnificent. I read it in one mesmerising sitting. I had no choice; it wouldn't let me go., Plainsong is nothing short of a revelation. I don't expect to read a better novel this year. Or next, for that matter., So delicate and lovely that it has the power to exalt the reader., Satisfying and warm, Plainsong is as purehearted a novel as they come.

Kent Haruf’s honours included a Whiting Foundation Award and a special citation from the PEN/Hemingway Foundation. His novel Plainsong won the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the New Yorker Book Award. Benediction was shortlisted for the Folio Prize. He died in November 2014, at the age of seventy-one.