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From the beloved and best-selling author of Plainsong and Eventide comes a story of life and death, and the ties that bind, once again set out on the High Plains in Holt, Colorado.
When Dad Lewis is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he and his wife, Mary, must work together to make his final days as comfortable as possible. Their daughter, Lorraine, hastens back from Denver to help look after him; her devotion softens the bitter absence of their estranged son, Frank, but this cannot be willed away and remains a palpable presence for all three of them. Next door, a young girl named Alice moves in with her grandmother and contends with the painful memories that Dad's condition stirs up of her own mother's death. Meanwhile, the town’s newly arrived preacher attempts to mend his strained relationships with his wife and teenaged son, a task that proves all the more challenging when he faces the disdain of his congregation after offering more than they are accustomed to getting on a Sunday morning. And throughout, an elderly widow and her middle-aged daughter do everything they can to ease the pain of their friends and neighbors.
Despite the travails that each of these families faces, together they form bonds strong enough to carry them through the most difficult of times. Bracing, sad and deeply illuminating, Benediction captures the fullness of life by representing every stage of it, including its extinction, as well as the hopes and dreams that sustain us along the way. Here Kent Haruf gives us his most indelible portrait yet of this small town and reveals, with grace and insight, the compassion, the suffering and, above all, the humanity of its inhabitants.
This ebook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.
- Sales Rank: #20486 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-02-26
- Released on: 2013-02-26
- Format: Kindle eBook
Amazon.com 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
From Booklist
*Starred Review* From the terroir and populace of his native American West, the author of Plainsong (1999) and Eventide (2004) again draws a story elegant in its simple telling and remarkable in its authentic capture of universal human emotions. The last, dying days of old Dad Lewis supply the framework for this sober yet reverberant novel. Dad owns a store in a small Colorado town, and his terminal illness draws out the compassion of his adult daughter, whom Dad wants to take over his business upon his imminent passing, and sparks an arousal in his long-devoted wife to seek some degree of resolution to an unhealed family wound. Dad’s closing days also stir emotions in other town residents who are in Dad’s realm of acquaintances, including the girl who moved in next door to stay with her grandmother and whose memories of her deceased mother remain raw; the new minister in town who suddenly rebels against the reluctance of his congregation to think about new ideas; and a mother and daughter, the former advanced in years and the latter now in middle age, who still confront traits in each other that they would just as soon not see. --Brad Hooper
Review
“His finest-tuned tale yet. . . . There is a deep, satisfying music to this book, as Haruf weaves between such a large cast of characters in so small a space. . . . Strangely, wonderfully, the moment of a man's passing can be a blessing in the way it brings people together. Benediction recreates this powerful moment so gracefully it is easy to forget that, like [the town of] Holt, it is a world created by one man.” —John Freeman, The Boston Globe
"A quiet and profound statement about endings, about change and death and endurance, and about the courage it takes to finally let go. . . . What's remarkable is Haruf's ability, once again, to square quotidian events with what it means to be alive and bound in ordinary pleasure with ordinary people [with] a matter-of-fact tone, with spare declarative sentences and plain-speak among the characters that is, in its bare-bones clarity, often heartbreakingly authentic." —Debra Gwartney, The Oregonian
“What Haruf makes of this patch of ground is magic [and] Benediction spreads its blessing over the entire town. Haruf isn’t interested in evil so much as the frailties that defeat us – loneliness, a failure to connect with one another, the lack of courage to change. . . . [He] makes us admire his characters’ ability not only to carry on but also to enjoy simple pleasures.” —Dan Cryer, San Francisco Chronicle
“We’ve waited a long time for an invitation back to Holt, home to Kent Haruf’s novels. . . He may be the most muted master in American fiction [and] Benediction seems designed to catch the sound of those fleeting good moments [with] scenes Hemingway might have written had he survived.” —Ron Charles, Washington Post
"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." —Harper Barnes, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Absorbing [and] evocative. . . . Haruf doesn’t offer us any facile reconciliations. The blessings in Benediction are [not] easily won. For that very reason they are all the more believable and all the more unforgettable.” – Richard Wakefield, The Seattle Times
"Splendid. . . . As the expertly crafted structure of Benediction emerges, it becomes clear that [Haruf's many] characters trace the arc of a life. . . as we join [a good but flawed man] in his deepening appreciation for those around him, while counting down the remaining hours, in his life and our own." —Mike Fischer, Portland Press Herald
“Remarkable. . . . Haruf paints indelible portraits of drifting days that reveal unexpected blessings. . . . We may not always recognize the best moments—maybe because they are often as simple as eating off the good china at a backyard picnic—but he understands their power to make us human.” —Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald
"Itself a blessing. . . spare and unencumbered. . . . 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." —Michael D. Langan, The Buffalo News
“Quiet, and intimate, and beautiful.” —Lisa McLendon, The Wichita Eagle
“If Hemingway had had more soul, he would've written a book like Benediction.” —Emma Broder, The Chicago Maroon
"Incisive, elegiac, and rhetorically rich. . . his finest expression yet of an aesthetic vision that, in spite of its exacting verisimilitude, achieves a mythic dimension rare in contemporary fiction. . . . Haruf's art is rigorous but transparent. Scene after scene, we appreciate that we are in the hands of a master of complex storytelling disguised as simple observation. . . . Reading [him], I am often reminded of the great Russian realists, who have a similar compressed intensity and who spent much of their writing time examining the lives of ordinary people living in small communities in wide-open spaces." —Kevin Stevens, The Dublin Review of Books
“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.” —Paul Elie, The New York Times Book Review
“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.” —Ben Goldstein, Esquire
“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, it is indeed a blessing.” —Karen R. Long, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Haruf is maguslike in his gifts. . . to illuminate the inevitable ways in which tributary lives meander toward confluence. . . . 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.” —Bruce Machart, The Houston Chronicle
“Both sad and surprisingly uplifting in its honest and skillful examination of death, families and friendship.” —Jason Swensen, Deseret News
“As Haruf's precise details accrue, a reader gains perspective: This is the story of a man's life, and the town where he spent it, and the people who try to ease its end. . . . 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.” —John Reimringer, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“Reverberant… From the terroir and populace of his native American West, the author of Plainsong and Eventide again draws a story elegant in its simple telling and remarkable in its authentic capture of universal human emotions.” – Brad Hooper, Booklist
Most helpful customer reviews
131 of 137 people found the following review helpful.
Beautifully told story of life in a small town on the Great Plains
By M. C. Crammer
In this novel in what must now be considered Haruf's "Holt, Colorado" series, the central character is "Dad" Lewis, a man at the end of his life. With the assistance of a hospice nurse, Dad is being cared for at home by his wife and middle-aged daughter in his final weeks. Although a central theme is Dad's internal process of coming to peace with his life and impending death, a number of other stories are told simultaneously: The son is estranged from the family, and no-one even knows where he is; a minister who already has a troubled past gets into further trouble with his church in Holt; a neighbor is raising her grand-daughter; a mother and daughter who are friends of the Lewis family have their own stories to tell.
Kent Haruf is a masterful writer and story teller. Any one of his characters in this book could be the basis for his next book -- I can hardly wait to find out which one he will choose for his next Holt novel, as you want to know more about each of his characters: Not a single one is boring or two dimensional. As someone who grew up in eastern Nebraska, and traveled quite a bit in the area he describes (I have a number of cousins in western Nebraska), I thought he got the character of the people right -- slow to change but willing to change if convinced that the change is needed; kind but taciturn; a sense of community but ruggedly independent; generally fair and principled, but sometimes behaving badly.
My only complaint (other than the fact that my review copy was missing 9 pages!) is that Haruf has adopted the contemporary fad of not using quotation marks. For most dialogue, I managed to separate dialogue from description without the quotation marks, but there were paragraphs where I had to reread a few sentences to figure out if someone was speaking, and if so, who. They invented quotation marks for a good reason: it makes it so much easier to read a book! In a day when fewer people are reading, why go out of your way to make reading harder because it looks more literary? Haruf is a brilliant writer and doesn't need to worry about publishing fads.
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Treasuring The Simple Things
By Someone Else
BENEDICTION is a pensive novel about the dailiness of life in a small town, the neighborly kindnesses as well as the regrets and missed chances that haunt its residents. At times it's more a lament than a benediction.
"Dad" Lewis is the central character. He only has a few weeks left to live. Knowing this makes him treasure events and places that once seemed ordinary and unspecial. As his life draws to a close, he allows himself to revert to a childlike authenticity. He finally tells people what he really thinks of them, and he gives in to emotions we learn to suppress and deny as we grow into adulthood. He lets himself weep as he contemplates the loss of life's most basic contentments -- the rhythms of our days that seem commonplace, but become dear as the end approaches.
This is not a novel you read for plot. There's not much action or conflict or conquest. I enjoyed it for the simple genius of the writing and the author's ability to excavate the human heart and mind. The approach is somewhat similar to Sherwood Anderson's WINESBURG, OHIO, although Haruf's prose is more restrained and pleasurable to read. Both books examine the secret longings and regrets of small-town folk, and the narrowing of opportunities imposed by small-town attitudes.
I recommend BENEDICTION for readers seeking the most realistic fiction you're likely to find. Kent Haruf is peerless in his ability to observe the poignancy and pathos of human experience and commit it to paper in its barest essence.
NOTE: Kent Haruf does not use quotation marks in his dialogue. Usually this is something that would bother me quite a bit. However, Haruf's style is so clean and simple that it wasn't a problem for me with this particular book.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Death, Life and Now
By Mark Stevens
"Benediction" says we all matter. Each of us. You.
"Benediction" looks at our faint footprints on the surface of the earth and says, quite simply, that each step counts.
Kent Haruf takes us back to Holt, Colorado. We return to the land of "Plainsong" and "Eventide," but there are only a couple of faint references to the characters who absorbed our attention during those two novels. If "Benediction" is the cap on a trilogy (and Kent Haruf says it's really not), then it's a trilogy by landscape, not character.
Except the landscape, out in eastern Colorado, seems to form the character. These are hard, rough-hewn lives. You hear the car tires crunch on the gravel streets, feel the wind blow and the sun beat down. If you live out here, you work.
Haruf doesn't judge. He's neutral. He's a documentarian. There are few books like these three (the only three of Haruf's that I've read) that will give you that in-the-moment feeling. The tone of the words says, "here is what's happening and there's nothing I can do to change it." The plot, if that's even the right word, is as organic as the soil. By the way, while "Benediction" feels even more terse and tidy than "Plainsong" (and that's saying something), there is also an awful lot of plot in "Benediction."
We are never ahead of the characters, nor are we encouraged to think about them one way or another. Haruf is their silent, stalking shadow. He doesn't push them from behind or tug them from in front.
Their actions are their actions, driven by how they think and their internal moral compass.
In "Benediction," the story settles on dying "Dad" Lewis and his wife Mary and their children, one estranged son and one daughter. "Benediction" encircles the lives of others in town, too, and we leave Dad and his decline for many pages at a time. He's in hospice; the outcome here is not in question.
There are only a few references that will place this story in any given period of time and those are so vague that "Benediction" takes on a dream-like quality. Not one commercial product (like the make and model of pickup) is recorded.
Haruf's detailed, up-close style manages to make the characters both intimate and universal at the same time. It's as if Haruf has the code to each character's soul.
For me, the most powerful ideas in "Benediction" revolve around the contrast between Dad's apparently secular life and the rebellion sparked in church when a new pastor suggests a radical form of international forgiveness. The pastor's idea is clearly just a theoretical, rhetorical question designed to test the congregation's appetite for peace, but even the concept is enough to trigger trouble. Imagine that.
At the same time we see Dad do the small things that suggest true community comes one conversation and one gesture at a time.
Banish the thought if you think any of this might dip, just for a flash, into sentimentality. Haruf never wavers. Death is death. Life is life. Now is now. Despite the use of a religious term for the title, "Benediction" is no ode to the power of a church. It's about the power of the individual. Haruf's spare, precise prose celebrates each person. We see individuals because Haruf sees distinct people in sharp relief.
"Benediction" is both bleak and beautiful, but I'll remember the beautiful and the reverence this novel holds for each human being.
"Benediction" makes us feel a bit better about ourselves.
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