Customer Reviews

Eventide

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

In Sara Nelson's book SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME, the author tells us she could not relate to PLAINSONG, that she put the book aside in favor of other books she'd rather read. How could it be, I wondered, that this national reviewer could scorn one of the best novels I've read in the last ten years?

I would assume that once again Nelson will be less than enthusiastic about the sequel. EVENTIDE is one slow-moving story. Haruf fashions scenes where a welfare couple shops for TV dinners at a supermarket. In another, a boy and girl clean out an old garden shed and play Monopoly. In yet another, the McPheron brothers sell their steers at an auction. I don't know how he does it, but Haruf makes these seemingly mundane scenes work. I guess it's because of the heart-tugging humanity they express. We know these people; we see ourselves in them.

I will admit it took me a while to warm to this book. Tom Guthrie and his boys are minor characters for one thing, and as a former teacher, I could relate to him. Right around page ninety or so, this becomes Raymond McPheron's book and you have to be a heartless jerk not to want to hang around with such a mensch. Raymond and Harold are having a hard time dealing with the loss of Victoria and her daughter Katie, who've gone off to college.

Haruf's style is quite spare, but there are hints of Faulkner and Hemingway. Haruf does for Holt, Colorado, what Faulkner did for Yoknapatawpha County. As in the Faulkner novels, the characters are a motley crew. There's a clueless welfare couple who can't seem to do anything right. DJ Kephart, a pre-teen version of Raymond, shepherds his grandfather through pneumonia and stands up for a woman in distress. The welfare couple's uncle is a veritable Simon Legree.

Haruf has the same lyrical cadence as Hemingway. Listen to this: "They left the corrals and walked across the gravel drive to the house and porch where they slapped the dust off their jeans and stomped their boots and went inside and took off their warm jackets and hats, and Raymond washed his hands and face at the sink and started to cook at the old enameled stove." Hemingway, right?

For whatever reason, Haruf also disdains quotation and question marks, and he will often begin a scene without making it clear whose viewpoint it is, leaving it to the reader to figure it out from context clues. The ending will also be disappointing for some. It fades out and lots of the threads are left unresolved, just as in real life.

Eventide is a blue-collar book with blue-collar characters and blue-collar sensibilities and definitely worth your time and money.

Three years after the author's previous novel, Plainsong, concluded, the author returns to Holt, Colorado, continuing the story of Raymond and Harold McPheron, elderly ranchers who lived in almost complete isolation until they agreed to provide a safe haven for a scared and pregnant teenager, three years ago. With other familiar characters from Plainsong also returning in minor roles, the novel then broadens to focus on three additional families, whose new stories the author deftly juggles and interweaves. Somewhat more thoughtful and complex than Plainsong, Eventide quickly engages the reader with its unpretentious style, revealing dialogue, and often heart-tugging scenes of difficult lives.

Luther and Betty June Wallace are some of Haruf's most beautifully drawn characters. Extremely limited in their understanding, they receive professional assistance in everything from budgeting to parenting classes, anger management, and lessons in cleanliness. DJ Kephart, a small eleven-year-old whose responsibilities make him seem much older, is an orphan, now living with his elderly, often bed-ridden, grandfather, for whom he does all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. He and his neighborhood friends, Dena and Emma Wells, whose father is in Alaska, spend their free time turning an abandoned shed into a playhouse, a peaceful, make-believe home where adults do not intrude. Suddenly, separate acts of fate, involving the McPheron brothers and each of these three families, upend all their lives and set in motion a series of events which will change them forever.

Death, illness, injury, abandonment, abuse, and the arbitrary harshness of fate all contribute to emotional crises the characters must find the strength to overcome. As Raymond McPheron says, simply, these acts of fate and disaster are "things you don't get over," but, as he notes while he is separating cows from their calves, "Every living thing in this world gets weaned eventually." Deliberately simple in style, but polished and graceful in its realization, the novel is full of the love and travail, the effort and failure, and the kindness and cruelty that fill the lives of these plainspoken, often endearing, characters.

Vibrant, almost lyrical descriptions of the land and nature are seen in the context of sudden emergencies arising on the ranch, and every scene of tenderness and love is juxtaposed against scenes of cruelty and inhumanity. A master at evoking emotion, Haruf tugs at the heartstrings of even the most stoic reader, drawing the reader into scenes of warmth and poignancy, only to jolt him/her with new scenes that kill the sentimentality. Life can be cruel, fate can be capricious, and things do not always turn out "right," but Haruf's characters somehow soldier on, with the reader right beside them, heartstrings thrumming. (4.5 stars) Mary Whipple

Kent Haruf's novels contain large lessons. His first novel, The Tie That Binds, was about duty and its costs, and his best known novel, Plainsong, was about transcending loneliness. Eventide is about courage and its sniveling evil twin, cowardice.

Haruf takes us back to the small town of Holt, Colorado -- a complicated but true place where kindness and cruelty exist side by side in the same proportions (or should I say disproportions) as the rest of the outside world. Here we find familiar characters from Plainsong, most notably the kind Maggie Jones, the ever capable Tom Guthrie, the stoic and funny McPheron brothers, and their triumphant ward, Victoria Roubidoux. And while they provide the comfortable base on which this new story is built, they are joined in Eventide by equally intriguing characters, such as Mary Wells, an abandoned mother, Rose Tyler, a dedicated social worker, and especially the courageous DJ Kephart, an 11-year old boy who has never gotten a break in his brief life but who transcends all with character and a moral strength that comes from some unknown place.

Courage is found throughout Holt. Raymond McPheron's quiet courage overcomes the loss of "his dead brother, gone on ahead". Mary Wells abandons self-pity to forge a new life and DJ forges ahead and literally strikes out at the evil he sees around him. Rose Tyler carries her burdens with resolve and strength and her wards, Joy Rae and Richie Wallace, the neglected children of pathetic losers, simply survive.

Unfortunately, where courage resides, cowardice lurks. Haruf's characterizations of Luther and Betty Wallace, the slothful welfare couple, and their vile relative, Hoyt Raines, are brilliant. Our feelings toward them are contradictory - on one level we pity them and their sad predicaments but on the other one we loathe them for their laziness and repeated bad choices.

In the end, the courage that resounds through the novel is the ability to learn from one's mistakes. As Raymond says as he shrugs off a temporary farm hand's apology for a mistake, "That happens. You just don't have to do it twice. Pay attention next time and it'll be alright. Let's go have us some breakfast." The triumphant characters of Eventide have all made mistakes but have learned from them; the losers in Eventide keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

As the novel ends, the "blue yardlights shining from the tall poles" that Raymond and Rose see on the outskirts of Holt are the simple acts of courage and kindness that light the darkness.

While the main characters from Haruf's PLAINSONG begin this book, the MacPheron brothers (whom I adore!!) this is not truly a continuation of that novel. EVENTIDE is the story of several families that give the word dysfunctional a brand new definition. (This is a much sadder book than PLAINSONG.) In this novel several fammilies in a small town face unrelenting hardtimes and truly have their backs up against the wall. Not all the families cope with the situations that face them. Some make the worst decisions possible leading to more pain and suffering. For others it is a hard scramble just to keep their head above the proverbial water. One of the bright spots of this novel is Rose, she is interesting , real and an absolute delight. Raymond MacPheron however is the shining star of this novel, his grittiness, his integrity and his desire to lead a meaningful life give this novel it's inner light. Kent Haruf creates with an honest heart, an open soul and a simplicity of the written word.

You know from his other books that he has lived in Holt, Colorado. You can tell by the way he uses the harshness of the weather and the reality of what it takes to make a living to offset the kindness and goodness of most of the characters. Like real life, not everyone in this book is good and kind, but it has a redeeming quality you can't get past. I live in Fort Collins myself and the mere mention of the various places visited in this book are enough to make me want to read all of Haruf's titles. I will also wish they do not end. I want the very best for Raymond McPheron and Victoria Roubideaux and Rose Tyler. These have become real people to me. A book like this makes me see my life and where I live it from a new perspective and with a new appreciation. I've known a few men and women like these and their simple kindnesses among each other are what life in most of small-town America is really made of.

Having read and LOVED, "Plainsong" I eagerly purchased "Eventide." Though much grittier and darker than it's predecessor, this book offering is important. As a huge fan of Haruf, this title seemed more in keeping with "Where He Once Belonged" and "The Tides That Bind" in it's less than perfect characterizations. Some of "Eventide's" personalaties border on pathetic, but is it not that way in life? In my 49 years of living in small towns in Montana and Wyoming, I certainly have met them all. Haruf does offer us hope through the "McPheron's" "Victoria and Katie," "Rose Tyler," and others that stumble, rising again from their self-inflicted ashes. That we must reside among the unreedemable is truth. The idiom that "truth hurts" applies here, but truth also educates, affects change, and defuncts one's prejudices and judgements. I cried often thoughtout, but I also questioned, pondered, and meditated. Bravo, to Mr. Haruf for daring to tear we readers from our comfort zones, urging compassion, understanding, and in some instances, action. Bravo, that through these characters we may affect change in our lives and those around us, rather than residing in our complacent ignorance. Bravo, that Mr. Haruf dared to challenge; in challenge, only, can we meet victory.

Bravo, bravo, bravo!

While it's supposedly not mandatory to have read Plainsong before you read this book, I'm certainly glad I did. All the back-stories are explained in enough detail, but still, I'm glad I got to know the characters in this book through Plainsong first.

Eventide is another exploration of how people affect other people's lives with the decisions they make and the words they use. As with Plainsong, this story takes place in Holt, Colorado (by the way, if you've ever driven through eastern Colorado, you'll have an extra-special appreciation for how flat, dreary, and endless the land is). Haruf describes the landscape, city, and his characters in simple, yet complete, detail.

I like that we get to know his characters by what they do, not by what the narrator says they're thinking. I like Haruf's very-detailed descriptions of every scene, gesture, and nuance. You get the idea that you're simply witnessing people's lives unfolding, rather than following some contrived plot. The story moves along very naturally.

My one complaint from Plainsong is repeated here: sometimes Haruf seems to think he needs to write a metaphor or simile about everything he describes. Some of these are lovely, but some are just, for lack of a better word, lame. Minor complaint, though; I enjoyed the book thoroughly.

I was recently given reason in my own life to contemplate how every little thing we do can affect people in ways that we sometimes can't imagine. This book is a beautiful illustration of that concept. I recommend it; it's a pretty fast read. But if you're obsessive like I am, read Plainsong, also a fast read, first.

Eventide, the follow-up to the beautiful National Book Award Finalist, Plainsong is a gorgeous tribute to the hard and troublesome life on the high plains of Colorado. Like its predecessor, the understated emotionality of Eventide builds until the grip on your heart is unmistakable. For someone who never has to raise his voice, Kent Haruf is still able to grab the attention of the reader and take them along for a glorious trip to Holt. What a pleasure to read such a well written, simple, yet powerful sequel to Plainsong. Kent Haruf proves he understands the human heart better than just about anybody. You fall in love with Harold, Raymond and Victoria all over again. Look for another National Book Award Nomination for this very fine chapter in the life of normal people in extraordinary circumstances. "There are some things in life you don't get over. This book will be one of them."(Have your Kleenex ready). A must read for 2004!

I don't always expect much from a sequel, but this one works. The main protagonists are Harold and Raymond who have befriended the pregnant girl, Victoria, and have taken her under their care as the daughter they never had. As she leaves to go to school, they are lonely and sorrowful, and the sorrow becomes almost unbearable at Harold's death. Raymond in his gentle and stoic fashion continues his work on the ranch, but there are happier times ahead. The story has humor and pathos--couldn't we have guessed that his first interest in a woman would turn out badly? But there is redemption for him and for the neglected children of the story. One of the prominent images is the cattle. We all go through a weaning from the old ways and reluctant steps into the unknown. Haruf has such respect for the landscape and the work of the people who inhabit it. His descriptions are verging on poetry, but he is wise enough not to overdo it. The characters talk like real people. In spite of the solemn tone at times, the book contains gentle humor, and we are left at the end with a feeling that everything is going to be all right.

This is a remarkable novel. By its end the characters have become friends (though there are a few that you might want to avoid). But each character is as real as any real person I've known. Haruf creates small town Plains life in ways no other writer has. There's a truth, a beauty and a resonance to his writing that mirrors the landscape of the high plains. The people sound right, the land looks real and life in Holt feels as though you had just dropped in. You know Haruf knows this place and and has lived with these people, and you trust him as you would a very good friend. He is neither condescending nor sentimental, it's just the news, and the news, though very difficult from time to time, is still the news of caring people trying to care for each other. The story, like Plainsong, keeps you nervously turning pages and the beauty of the writing slows you down. I'm waiting for the next installment - and the thought of waiting another four years or so simply sends me back to Plainsong.