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The stories displayed in this novel are simple and unadorned, both by the mundane events going on in the lives of these ordinary characters, and by the sober style of Haruf’s prose, which brings them to life. But when you sing these plain tunes together, a canon of imitations of melody, recurrent patterns and apparently disparate circumstances, compose a more colorful, richer symphony that is anything but simple.

In the small community of Holt, Colorado, Tom Gurthie, a high school history teacher, is trying to endure his wife’s long-term depression while dealing with concerning issues in the classroom that might bring an untimely end to his career. His two young boys Ike and Bobby face a motherless future that forces them to enter the world of adulthood prematurely.
Victoria is a teenager who is thrown out when her mother finds out that she is pregnant. The McPheron brothers, two elderly and lonely farmers, will offer her shelter and, quite unexpectedly, a solitary farmstead might become a warm, sweet home.

The pace of the storyline moves forward without giving way into easy dramatizing, alternating realistic situations that invite the reader to pause and reflect on the plausible obstacles the characters confront on a daily basis and a vital cadence that pulsates underneath the toned-down narration.
The scenarios the novel features might seem unrelated on the surface, but they are essentially the same when one takes a closer look, as there is nothing trivial in the tragedy that the complex business of living entails. Sorrow has a counterpart, the other side of the coin, like everything else, and even if it is not visible to the eyes; like the sun, the stars or the motes of dust that are suspended in the air, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Contentment is within our hands� reach, if only we make an effort to feel it.

This is the beauty of Haruf’s novels; this is the genius of his art, of his vision of the world. He gives enough perspective and soul to his characters to find beauty in the bigger picture, even if there are some raw, dark, cruel dots that disturb the harmony of the physical and psychological landscape that they inhabit.
Generosity, delicate and charming, abounds in parenthesis amidst the commonplace suffering described in the pages of this novel; an unorthodox family might be possible in the imaginary plains of Holt that might reach mythical grandeur and will preserve the essential values of life. Well-rounded happiness is possible because there is a matching piece somewhere for every lost soul. Just keep your eyes open.