Kent Haruf has received prestigious awards, including a special citation from the PEN/Hemingway Foundation for his finely-tuned works. Before the opening chapter of this novel, Haruf offers a definition. Plainsong is "any simple and unadorned melody or air." Direct yet elegant, Haruf's Plainsong is a hymn to the breadth of the human spirit. A high school history teacher in a small Colorado town, Guthrie is raising his two young sons alone. Thoughtful and honest, he is guiding them through a world that is not always kind. Victoria, one of his students, is pregnant, homeless, and vulnerable to the scorn of the town. When Guthrie helps two elderly ranchers take the young woman into their home, an unlikely extended family is born. As the chapters of these people's lives alternate throughout Plainsong, loneliness and need are transformed into nourishing bonds. Narrator Tom Stechschulte captures the subtle changes that bring the men, women, and children together. His performance highlights every shading of this superb New York Times best-seller.
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“This is a compelling story of grief, bereavement, loneliness, and anger, but also of kindness, benevolence, love, and the making of a strange new family. In depicting the stalwart courage of decent, troubled people going on with their lives, Haruf’s quietly eloquent account illumines the possibilities of grace.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Lyrical and well crafted, the tight narrative about how families can be made between folks who are not necessarily blood relatives makes for enjoyable reading. Highly recommended.”
— Library JournalKent Haruf (1943–2014) was the author of Plainsong, which received the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction, and the New Yorker Book Award. It was also a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award. His novel The Tie That Binds received a Whiting Foundation Award and a special citation from the Pen/Hemingway Foundation. In 2006 he was awarded the Dos Passos Prize for Literature. All of his novels are set in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado, which is loosely based on Yuma, Colorado, where the author lived in the 1980s.
Tom Stechschulte (1948–2021) was an acclaimed narrator and winner of the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration. He had been a college athlete and business major when a friend dared him to audition for a play. He got the part and traded the locker room for the dressing room, eventually taking him to New York City and to recording audiobooks.