![]() ![]() She is careful to explain she is not looking for love, but for that special companionship at night – a companionship she never really experienced with her husband throughout a difficult marriage. Cautiously, she asks if Louis might like to try out such an arrangement to come by in the evening, share some small talk and then retire to her bedroom. Not friends, but certainly not strangers. Someone to talk with, to sleep next to, to fill that loneliest part of her days.Īddie and Louis are neighbors of many years. After many years of widowhood, Addie decides that what she misses most of all is someone to be with through the night. Our Souls at Night is the story of two senior citizens, seemingly at peace with their widowed lives until Addie comes knocking on the door of her neighbor Louis. Holt is a small town with its inhabitants, as in all small towns, knowing just about all they need to know about one another. Haruf has left a literary legacy held fast in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado. Our Souls at Night is highly recommended.What a great pleasure to recommend Kent Haruf’s last book, published posthumously in 2015. ![]() As you might suspect, there’s quite a bit of nostalgic Americana in the book (fried-chicken picnics, men chewing the fat at a bakery I love the detail of Louis carrying his pajamas to Addie’s house in a paper sack), but it’s not the treacly sort, since Addie and Louis’s old-fashioned routines are accompanied by the old-fashioned attitudes in Holt. While Our Souls at Night is set in the present (Jamie has a smartphone to call his mother), Addie and Louis’s world feels timeless, especially since they do things at a slower pace than that typically required by modern consumerism. ![]() The novel reads quickly, gliding along smoothly until a line or an image snaps into focus, arresting momentum.Īpart from its style and simplicity, I loved this book for its focus on two main characters navigating the transition from late middle age into old age (Addie and Louis are about 70). Chapters and sentences tend to be short, and you’ll find few polysyllabic words, but so much is going on beneath the surface and in silences that it’s impossible not to recognize the incredible skill of a master writer. The story and style of Our Souls at Night are deceptively simple. When Addie’s son returns for Jamie, however, Louis and Addie find that his disapproval means more than their neighbors’. After his parents’ arguments and separation, the boy is lonely and often frightened, but Addie and Louis minister to him with calmness, routine, and simple pleasures: softball games, camping, the observation of tiny mice. The arrival of Addie’s grandson Jamie does bring change. But neither Addie nor Louis is willing to alter their arrangement for appearance’s sake. Though wary of talk in their small town, Louis agrees, and sure enough, the small community is set abuzz by what it’s presumed Louis and Addie are up to (but what is, for the bulk of the novel, holding hands and talking). Set in his fictional town of Holt, Colrado (the setting of his earlier novels, which I will now be adding to my reading list), the story begins when a widow, Addie, makes her neighbor Louis (a widower) an unusual proposition: come spend the night with her, so that the both have someone to share the darkness with. I’m so pleased to report that the first book I read this year is Kent Haruf’s excellent (and sadly, last) novel Our Souls at Night. ![]()
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