Customer Reviews

The Tie That Binds

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The first book I read from Kent Haruf was Plainsong, which I thought was one of the best books of the year. The Tie That Binds, however, may be even better. It's bleak simplicity, as stark as the Colorado plains in which it takes place, assaults the reader slowly and steadily, unrelenting, but sublime and oh so human. The story of Sanders Roscoe and his neighbors Edith and Lyman Goodnough is heartbreaking and inevitable. Told by Roscoe in a voice as authentic as any I've ever heard, the tale unwinds slowly and passionately. I can imagine sitting in Roscoe's house listening to him tell his side of the story with the rapt attention he demands and deserves. Like Plainsong, the book is full of characters who, with the exception of Edith's father, straddle the line between heroism and villanry. No one is without blame or imperfections, regardless of their intentions. Haruf obviously understands life in Holt, Colorado, and does a wonderful job of conveying it to the reader. Likewise, he knows people and the characters in this book jump off the pages with honesty and realness. An excellent book and another reason to delve deeper into the Haruf portfolio of fine books.

THE TIE THAT BINDS is structured differently than PLAINSONG. For one thing it's written in first person and the narrator, rancher Sanders Roscoe, holds the point of view throughout the novel. But the story is really about Edith Goodnough, who is being charged with the murder of her brother. Roscoe takes us all the way back to the nineteenth century when Edith's father Roy emigrated to Holt County, Colorado. He and his wife, Ada, have two children, Edith and Lyman. Roy is an ornery cuss who treats his family like possessions. Ada, who longs for her home country in Iowa, soon dies and Edith becomes the mother, a role she will play for the rest of her life.

Sanders' father once had a romantic attachment to Edith but Roy rejects him because he's part Native American. His father never quite gets over Edith and makes Sanders help out at the Goodnoughs when Roy tries to make Edith work in the fields. She becomes a second mother to Sanders.

These characters are simply amazing. Lyman Goodnough, who escapes his father during WWII and travels the U.S. for most of his life, is a true original. Little Rena Roscoe, Sanders' daughter, adds a little comic relief to the story when she forms an attachment to the increasingly senile Lyman. About the only character from PLAINSONG that's familiar is Sheriff Bud Sealy, who incites Sanders' wrath when he arrests Edith. Believe me, it doesn't matter; this author can make the most transitory character resonate with life.

Kent Haruf has more compassion in his little toenail than some of our religious leaders have in their whole congregation. When Edith's father dies, she winds up alone. Haruf's description of what this does to a person, sent shivers up my spine. I cannot recommend this novel highly enough. I've read PLAINSONG, EVENSONG and now THE TIE THAT BINDS, and I can't wait for the next episode in the lives of the people who live in Holt, Colorado.

This is the 3rd Haruf book I've read. Started with PLAINSONG which was a complete masterpiece, then moved onto WHERE YOU ONCE BELONGED which was a haunting story about small town love. Now, THE TIE THAT BINDS explores the life of one central character, a woman who forsakes a deep and true lover to care for her physically maimed and emotionally abusive father. Haruf's writing is absorbing, engrossing and totally spellbinding. The reader comes to understand the motives behind the sometimes desperate actions of these people. I love the spare, bleak descriptions of life in this town of Holt. The novel builds to an inevitable, heartbreaking conclusion. I'd give more than a nickel to read more from this author...I thoroughly enjoy his work. This is a quick, compelling read that will stay with you for a long time.

Fifteen years before he wrote his masterpiece Plainsong, Kent Haruf produced this gem. The Tie That Binds will surely find readers as a result of Plainsong, a fine story about brothers and loneliness and tenacity in the High Plains community of Holt, Colorado. Haruf's first novel also features the relationship between siblings, the dutiful Edith Goodnough and her simple brother Lyman, both children of failed homesteaders condemned to a hard life on a dryland farm south of Holt. She is, in the words of the narrator, Sanders Roscoe, her admiring neighbor from the adjacent ranch, a person who "continued to endure by plain courage and a clear eye to duty." In her 80 years, Edith has known 4 men well - her own flawed father and his feckless son Lyman - and another father and son, John and Sanders Roscoe, who are the only persons in the world who truly understand her courage, incredible sense of duty, and beauty. But, as Sanders says "understanding it doesn't mean liking it". Edith's story is haunting yet inspirational. Sanders wonderful narration is filled with the stoic truths of the Great Plains: "Life ain't fair" and "If you can't understand it, you just have to accept it" and "It wasn't anybody's fault. It happened; that's all." The tenor of The Tie That Binds is reminiscent of a two very different classics of the Plains: Larry McMurtry's "Last Picture Show" and Ole Rolvaag's "Giants in the Earth." Having grown up on the Eastern Colorado plains, I swear I know many of the characters. They are as genuine as the real article and every bit as tragic. Five stars without reservation.

Something unusual happened when I was about half way through `The Ties That Bind'...I misplaced my copy of the book. A couple of months later, when I found it again and resumed reading it, I was amazed to find that it was as though I'd never been away from Haruf's wonderful creation.

Like many people, I had read Haruf's most recent work, `Plainsong', been utterly captivated and immediately ordered his previous novels. While `The Ties That Bind' does not have the same depth of skill as `Plainsong' the gap between the two novels is slight. Haruf's tale of Sanders Roscoe and his neighbor Edith Goodnough and her demanding family is spare and haunting. Haruf's characters are so real, so genuine and alive that the reader can't help but develop an empathy for them that is rare in fiction today. Although lacking the depth and finesse of `Plainsong', `The Ties That Bind' is a wonderful first novel.

After reading this book, one looks at the often thin and temporary relationships of family today in a different light. This book creates characters that are real, human, and honorable; yet, you wonder if you admire or pity them

After reading PLAINSONG, which I could not put down--I stayed up until 4AM to finish it--I was relieved to find two more novels by this writer. The TIE THAT BINDS has so much truth I called people on the phone to read them passages. These characters are completely real to me now, so much so that it feels strange to remember that I met them in a novel.

This is a beautiful story of a woman's very difficult life and her survival.

THE TIE THAT BINDS by Kent Haruf was a novel to break my heart, tear at my senses; it was a profound emotional exprience. Haruf immersed my sensibilities into a hard and unloving environment, he drowned me in the vivid unlucky details of the several lives presented; further, he demonstrated beyond doubt that in this world the victimization of each character by "life" is a tawdry result of simply being born. When Sandy, the tough narrator, and his father, Roscoe, have their first father-son, man-to-man encounter over Sandy's first beer, Sandy responds to his father's story concerning Edith, with whom he shares an unrequited love, "But it's not fair." Roscoe launches Sandy into adulthood with his finest wisdom: "Course it's not fair. There ain't none of it that's fair. Life ain't. And all our thinking it should be don't seem to make one single damn. You might as well know that now as later." Always, are the warnings, the clues, the foretaste of tragedies to come. The reader first learns of impending disasters then smothers for details until much later when the pathetic event emerges in its fullness. One tragedy is not enough. Tragedy follows tragedy. Life is a urinal here. I was soiled. I was overwhelmed. I was touched.

The environment Haruf created is philosophically a deterministic naturalistic setting from whose grasp, the characters and the reader cannot escape. We are all "stuck!" Never mind that the details of life in rural America are so graphic at times that I was repulsed as I read of it; never mind that the narrator, Sandy, is a pessimistic observer, and he is the one from whom I was handed the lurid, sickening details. And never mind that Haruf plopped my busy behind in a chair across the table from Sandy, behind a cup of coffee and that Sandy made direct address to me throughout the accounting of the story within a story. Edith, the old woman around whom the story evolves remained suspended with an IV in the back of her hand, in the hospital, (the story)while Sandy and I drank coffee and he told me the truth (the story within). Because despite Sandy's negative
views, despite his railing against "outrageous fortune" and his fellow man, I came to know him as a good and loving man, fallible, human (sometimes weak), and vulnerable. From his view, the story unfolded, the characters became round and full, and their lives endured; thus, I, the reader, suffered the tragedies and as Haruf dunked my head in the stench of it until my "self" that demanded justice above all other values, could hardly breathe. All my senses were engaged, saturated until I could see, smell, taste, feel, and touch the unyielding, undeserved pain of the lives of the characters with my sensibility and sympathy, but I seldom "enjoyed" the experience though I could not "...put the book down". I knew the characters and the setting intimately. I came to love their world and to love them, especially to understand them, often to admire them. And so, I suffered heartbreak on their behalf.

I highly recommend this book. Why should one read a book that
delivers a painful experience? The idea that we should bear the burden of others is not new in literature. Edna St. Vincent Millay said it beautifully in RENASCENCE as did Emerson in his concept of the "oversoul." Surely, an author who emerses us vicariously into uncomfortable circumstances suffered by others serves us well and saves us from complacency, helps us to examine our interactions with others...wonder about their personal stories. I was well served in that regard by Haruf and his vivid characters.

I wish there were half stars--I would rate this as 4.5!I liked this book very much--just slightly less than "Plainsong".

In this earlier novel, Haruf tells the story of the Goodnough family over a period of eighty years. The story is not told in a totally chronological way, and there is some foreshadowing (which I usually don't like, but it *fit* here). Rather, Haruf tells the story via a series of well-crafted vignettes spanning almost an entire century, narrated mostly by Roscoe Sanders, a neighbor of Edith and Lyman Goodnough. These scenes are so detailed that one is easily able to "fill in" the intervening years.

This is a spare, harsh novel about "the tie that binds" - which in this book is family. But in this case, the tie does not just bind, but almost strangles Edith, the central character. She is tied by obligation and a sort of love that never allow her to put her desires or needs above those of her father and brother.

Like "Plainsong", this book takes place in Holt, Colorado. Unlike "Plainsong", Haruf used quotation marks!

The characters are incredibly well-drawn and so very real. Although I was able to feel the despair of Edith's life, I never felt sorry for her, mainly because Haruf never had her express or show any self-pity. She just did what had to be done, day after day, year after year. Haruf certainly has a gift for causing the reader to have intense feelings about those who populate his books and for evoking the starkness of the Colorado plains.