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Published in 1999, Plainsong is Kent Haruf's most famous work. It 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.

The novel is set in the small fictional town of Holt, Colorado. It captures life in a small community. In alternating fashion, it relates the story of the key characters: Guthrie (a teacher estranged from his wife), his sons, Ike (age 10) and Bobby (age 9), Victoria (a homeless pregnant teen); Ms Maggie Jones (Victoria's teacher), and the McPheron brothers (a pair of bachelors in their 50s).

The language is spare and simple but effective. We are rarely told how the characters feel but we know from the straightforward description how things are. E.g., Ike and Bobby go round to collect payment for their paper routes and are subjected to questions about their home situation but their humiliation and discomfort are plainly communicated.

It is also remarkable how the prose in drawing attention to dusty pickups, dirt-blowing winter wind, yellowish street lamps or a leafless Chinese elm tree convey a mood, such as a sense of desolation. In this scene, one feels Victoria's hollow panic when she is trying in vain to contact her boyfriend from a pay phone on the highway outside of town. Even the natural environs are captured in their raw, unflattering state: "The flower spikes of the soap-weed stuck up like splintered sticks, the seed pods dry and dark-looking against the winter grass." Yet, the landscape stripped of all romanticism reflects how life is for the ordinary folks living unremarkable lives.

The story holds up stark contrasts between cruelty and kindness. Victoria's mother and the Beckman family embody callousness and meanness. They are the foil that sets in tender relief the thoughtful solicitude of the kindly old doctor, the supportive teacher Maggie Jones, the young boys who love and miss their mother, and the McPheron brothers. Acts of kindness are told with grace.

I warm most of all to the McPheron brothers who have led reclusive lives from their orphaned youth and are rough, gruff, and socially very awkward. Precisely because of this, it is touching to see how they strive against their latent reticence to make conversation with Victoria (even if it is about cattle on their farm) and to be family to her.

It takes someone like Maggie to build bridges between people. It makes me think how much we can really know about what others have undergone in their lives when all we see is simply the exterior facade. At the same time, we also cannot underestimate the goodness that lies behind seemingly unapproachable folks and the extent of compassion even scarred individuals are capable of extending to each other.

The novel ends quietly on a note of realism. Crises are not fully resolved. I am left thinking about the vulnerable young brothers whose mother is never coming home. I cannot help but wonder if they will grow up to become like the McPheron brothers. Yet, I also get a sense that they, like Victoria, will find their way in life.

Like a chant, "Plainsong" reverberates in my mind and heart after the last page is turned.