Benediction - Softcover

Haruf, Kent

4.01

21,262 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144722972X ISBN 13: 9781447229728

Publisher: Picador, 2013

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In BENEDICTION, Haruf writes of the precious ordinary. In this case it's the ordinary life of Dad Lewis, long-time resident of Holt, Colorado, who is now dying of cancer. He has months to live and in those last few months the people who love him gather around him. As the novel unfolds we are introduced to new characters and get glimpses of those we know well from PLAINSONG and EVENTIDE.One long last summer for Dad Lewis in his beloved town, Holt, Colorado. As old friends pass in and out of his front door to voice their farewells, their prayers, their good wishes, Dad's wife and daughter work to make his final days as comfortable as possible, knowing all is tainted by the heart-break of an absent son. Next door, a little girl moves in with her grandmother and is drawn into the circle of friendship, her innocence and youth providing promise and hope to all those around her. And down town another new arrival, the Reverend Rob Lyle, attempts to mend strained relationships of his own, as he faces up to his latest congregation. Set in an imaginative landscape as vivid and powerful as those of Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx, Benediction is a devastating yet affirming novel that explores the pain, the compassion and above all the humanity of ordinary people.

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Review:

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, March 2013: Kent Haruf writes about small towns and regular people, but don’t underestimate his ambition. He is writing about life, and to do that he has returned again and again--first with Plainsong, later with Eventide--to the small town of Holt, located on the eastern plains of Colorado. In Benediction, Haruf introduces us to Dad Lewis, a 77-year-old hardware store owner who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The experience of reading Haruf is a slow burn, but as we meet the people who gather around Dad Lewis in his final days we begin to see that this is a book about community, about the things that bind us, as well as the secrets we keep to ourselves. Haruf writes with a tense, quiet realism that elevates life and death, granting both a dignity that touches on poetry. --Chris Schluep

About the Author:

Kent Haruf's honors include a Whiting Foundation Award and a special citation from the PEN/Hemingway Foundation. 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. He lives with his wife, Cathy, in the town of Salida in their native Colorado.

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