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“Haruf is the master of what one of his characters calls ‘the precious ordinary’…With understated language and startling emotional insight, he makes you feel awe at even the most basic of human gestures.”
— Esquire
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“Benediction suggests there’s no end to the stories Haruf can tell about Holt or to the tough, gorgeous language he can summon in the process.”
— New York Times Book Review
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In Benediction, as in his previous four novels…it’s the restraint of Haruf’s storytelling that provides its power and its grace.
— Barnes&Noble.com, editorial review
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“Haruf writes with a tense, quiet realism that elevates life and death, granting both a dignity that touches on poetry.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review
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“He produces the kind of scenes that Hemingway might have written had he survived the ravages of depression.”
— Washington Post
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“Haruf’s finest-tuned tale yet.”
— Boston Globe
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“Grace and restraint are abiding virtues in Haruf’s fiction, and they resume their place of privilege in his new work…For readers looking for the rewards of an intimate, meditative story, [Benediction] is indeed a blessing.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“Perhaps not since Hemingway has an American author triggered such reader empathy with so little reliance on the subjectivity of his characters…[This] is a modestly wrought wonder from one of our finest living writers.”
— Houston Chronicle
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“Remarkable…Haruf paints indelible portraits of drifting days that reveal unexpected blessings.”
— Miami Herald
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“A lovely book, surprisingly rich in character and event without any sense of being crowded…Haruf is a master in summing up the drama that already exists in life, if you just pay attention.”
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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“His sentences have the elegance of Hemingway’s early work [and his] determined realism, which admits that not all of our past actions or the reasons behind them are knowable, even to ourselves, is one of the book’s satisfactions.”
— Minneapolis Star-Tribune
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“Heartbreakingly authentic.”
— Oregonian
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“Splendid…As the expertly crafted structure of Benediction emerges, it becomes clear that [Haruf’s many] characters trace the arc of a life.”
— Portland Press Herald
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“Haruf’s great skill is in describing the plain ways of people who live in small places [and the war] going on between good and evil that we recognize as part of our nature. This is what makes Benediction a universal story, not a hometown tale.”
— Buffalo News
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“Both sad and surprisingly uplifting in its honest and skillful examination of death, families and friendship.”
— Deseret News
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“Separately and together, all the characters are trying to live—and in Dad’s case, to die—with dignity, a struggle Haruf renders with delicacy and skill.”
— Publishers Weekly (Pick of the Week)
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“Haruf
captures the sadness and hardship, the joys and triumphs behind the lives of
ordinary people. Benediction has an understated Our Town quality
that’s all the more powerful in the hands of this master storyteller. This is
exceptional fiction not to be missed.”
— Library Journal (starred review)
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“Haruf isn’t
interested in the trendy or urban; as he once said, he writes about ‘regular,
ordinary, sort of elemental’ characters, who speak simply and often don’t speak
much at all. ‘Regular and ordinary’ can equate with dull. However, though this
is a quiet book, it’s not a boring one. Dad and his family and neighbors try,
in small, believable ways, to make peace with those they live among, to
understand a world that isn’t the one in which they came of age. Separately and
together, all the characters are trying to live—and in Dad’s case, to die—with
dignity, a struggle Haruf renders with delicacy and skill.”
— Publishers Weekly
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“Mark Bramhall gives an emotional performance
of this melancholy slice of life in a small town. Author Kent Haruf once again
focuses on various characters who live in the town of Holt, Colorado. Bramhall
will have listeners in tears, yet uplifted, as he voices Dad Lewis, an elderly
man who is dying of cancer with dignity and just a few regrets. Other characters
revolving around Dad’s end-of-life experience are portrayed with vulnerability
and grace as they deal with situations of their own. Bramhall lets the
characters’ stories unfold slowly, lingering over the details that capture the
essence of life in a small town, as well as the sorrow of bereavement. Winner
of an AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile