The reviews for the book amount to a benediction of their own, invoking literary blessings on the novel and its author.
Much hovers beneath Haruf’s graceful prose, and much is gradually revealed as the disarmingly simple sentences build, steadily and surely, to the conclusion. The novel, though, is far from a depressing death-watch, or a saccharine bedside farewell, but a look at the sometimes harsh realities of life in a small town, at one man’s life and relationships, and at his capacity for both great generosity and great cruelty. The new offering tells the story of Dad Lewis, who learns in the opening pages that he will be dead before the end of the summer. In it, Haruf takes us back to Holt, his fictional town in eastern Colorado, the scene of his previous novels, Plainsong and Eventide.
“His finest-tuned tale yet.” The tale in question is Kent Haruf’s Benediction, just published by Knopf, and the phrase comes from one of a growing body of reviews filled with praise for the novel. Benediction, the new novel by Kent Haruf.
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