A Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year
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.
