Benediction Kent Haruf.
Knopf Publishing, New York. 258 pages
Kent Haruf offers the third in a trilogy that includes “Plainsong” and “Eventide.” This new work is a beautiful story set on the high plains of Colorado, in the small community of Holt. Reminiscent of Wendell Berry’s fiction, this is a story that is so plain in its telling that it becomes revelatory of some- thing deeper about human relationships. At the center is the experience of Dad Lewis dying as his wife Mary tends to him and their daughter Lorraine returns from Denver to join the family in caring. Absent from the family but ever present in their minds is the estranged son Frank. His absence haunts Dad, who reviews his long life, poignantly remembering the people who shaped his life and the choices he has made.
The act of letting go of this life is rarely told as tenderly as Haruf does without falling into sentimental- ity. Included in this telling is the saga of the local pastor, Rob Lyle, who has been assigned to Holt after a failed pastorate in Denver. Lyle’s penchant for truth-telling stirs up more trouble than his parishioners wish. His wife and teenage son despise him because of their displacement to Holt with him. His relationship with Dad Lewis and his family is a window into the ancient practices that have defined pastor and community. What is pleasurable about this novel is precisely that it evokes a deeper sense of what is possible when we actually attend to the people in our lives.
