Plainsong (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Kent Haruf
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The late 1990’s
- Setting: Colorado
- Principal Characters: Tom Guthrie, Ike, Bobby, Victoria Roubideaux, Raymond and Harold McPheron
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Parents and children, Marriage, Rural or country life, Pregnancy, Violence, Fathers, Single parents or single-parent families, 1990’s, Ranches, ranchers, or ranching, High schools or high school students, Animals, Voyeurism
- Locales: Colorado
Like Kent Haruf’s previous novels, Where You Once Belonged (1990) and The Tie That Binds (1984), the latter the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award, Plainsong, as the title suggests, uses simple characters to dramatize basic events. In support of this, the author gives his plot a rural setting, and makes its main characters speak as little as possible. Also, Plainsong is democratic in that it has several protagonists, and it is moralistic in that it condemns its antagonists to the roles of minor characters, in line, perhaps, with how mean-spirited they...
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