Product Description

Kent Haruf, award-winning, bestselling author of Plainsong returns to the high-plains town of Holt, Colorado, with a novel of masterful authority. The aging McPheron brothers are learning to live without Victoria Roubideaux, the single mother they took in and who has now left their ranch to start college. A lonely young boy stoically cares for his grandfather while a disabled couple tries to protect their a violent relative. As these lives unfold and intersect, Eventide unveils the immemorial truths about human beings: their fragility and resilience, their selfishness and goodness, and their ability to find family in one another.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155414 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-03
• Released on: 2005-05-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.com
Kent Haruf, author of Plainsong, one of the most beloved novels in recent years, has wisely continued the franchise in Eventide, another foray into the prairie town of Holt, Colorado. We meet some of the same people--the McPheron brothers, Tom Guthrie and Maggie Jones, Victoria and her daughter Katie, and are introduced to new ones. Once again, the quirky bachelors Harold and Raymond McPheron, short on conversation and long on heart, form the sweet center of the book. The constants here are the brothers, the landscape--by turns hostile, demanding and renewing--and a few of the locals, whom we meet in varying degrees of their travails and redemption.

Victoria, the young pregnant woman the brothers took in in Plainsong, has gone off to college at Fort Collins, leaving the brothers standing at the kitchen counter, "drinking coffee and talking about how Victoria Roubideaux was doing a hundred and twenty-five miles away from home ... while they themselves were living as usual in the country in Holt County ... with so much less to account for now that she was gone, and a wind rising up and starting to whine outside the house." Much as Seinfeld was called the TV show about nothing, Haruf's books are so low-key and straightforward that a careless reader might miss the fact that they are about everything that life has to offer: love, sorrow, malice, understanding, and the connections that make and keep us human, to name a few.

DJ is an 11-year-old living alone with his grandfather, when he befriends two young girls whose father left for Alaska and decided not to return. Their mother is mired in grief and the three children, abandoned by the adults in their lives, find refuge in an old shed they make habitable. "So for a while the two sisters and the boy lay on the floor under the blankets, reading books in the dim candlelight, with the sun falling down outside in the alley, the three of them talking a little softly, drinking coffee from a thermos, and what was happening in the houses they’d come from, seemed, for that short time, of little importance." One of Haruf's particular gifts is in showing us people who give and take solace wherever it may be found.

An unfortunate disabled couple, parents of two young children, are trying to make their way in a world they cannot fathom. They are assisted by Rose Tyler, their caseworker, who is a friend of Maggie Jones. aggie, who drew Tom Guthrie out of his depression in Plainsong, is once again a catalyst for change when she introduces Rose to Raymond. There is no doubt more to come, as life in Holt, Colorado, continues to evolve and Kent Haruf keeps us informed. --Valerie Ryan

From Publishers Weekly
Narrator Hearn, who won a Tony award for his performance in the Broadway musical Sunset Boulevard, proves to be a perfect complement to Haruf's earthy, austerely elegant prose in this atmospheric sequel to Hearn's novel Plainsong (1999). Many of the characters from that book return, with the brothers Harold and Raymond MacPheron once again serving as the focal point. Haruf concentrates on the complexities of what seems to be a simple Colorado community. New characters include a mentally challenged couple struggling to raise their two children, and an 11-year-old orphan boy charged with caring for his aging grandfather. The text is restrained, as is Hearn's performance. His relaxed, throaty voice and even pace fit comfortably with a book that boasts its fair share of sayings like, "Yes, ma'am," and in which a present participle ending in "g" is rarer than a discouraging word. He makes only the slightest alterations for different characters, yet they all ring true. Whether describing the events of a tragic death or a couple's thorough contemplation of the likelihood that pouring raisins on plain cereal would be the same thing as Raisin Bran itself, Hearn's voice possesses an ease and casual quaintness to rival Garrison Keillor, and it precisely conveys this book's enchanting spell.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–In this sequel to Plainsong(Knopf, 1999), Victoria Roubideaux and her baby move from the McPheron ranch to settle into her new life of college and single parenthood. When Harold McPheron is accidentally killed by a bull, his brother, Raymond, tries desperately to cope with the ranch and living by himself. Rose Tyler, a kind, middle-aged social worker, eventually becomes his friend and lover and acts as a balance in his life. Harold becomes a part of the lives of her clients, especially young DJ Kephart, who struggles daily to be both an elementary school child and caregiver to his grandfather. This natural interaction of people thrown together by fate and unplanned circumstances realistically mimics life in general and, specifically, the community life of many small towns. The overall tone of the book offers hope and love despite the stark moments of sadness and grief. Compassion, strength of character, and loving concern for all life become the positive forces that help each of the individuals carry on. This book stands alone, but reading the two novels in sequence gives additional meaning and understanding to the events and characters.–Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

The American Family
This story gets back to the basics of family and what people will do for one another. A good wholesome story that brings out the best of human nature despite unfortunate circumstances. A story of hope and goodness in often unpleasant situations. A most relaxing and enjoyable read that will leave you waiting for the next one Haruf writes. Eventide

Slow down...
Read this book slowly; settle into the steady rhythms of the storytelling, and savor the characters and their intersecting short stories. That's what this book is--a series of interrupted but interwoven short stories. They are sweet, sorrowful, hopeful, and plainspoken. Plainsong stayed with me long after I finished the book, and these characters and their environments embedded themselves even more complexly with Eventide. Lovely, lovely writing.

Tell Me When
I read this book because the discussion group to which I belong had read Plainsong and voted to read Eventide also. I found it very disconcerting that the author did not use quotation marks and that he gave his readers so few clues as to when Plainsong took place.

At some place in Eventide I was able to put aside my irritation with the author for not using quotation marks and for not telling his readers when the story takes place.

I did find a few clues about the time period including cordless phones (since Betty took the phone to the couch, and another character took a phone to the bedroom). Page 6 tells us the McPherons were gassing up both the truck and the car so the Gas and Go must have been self-serve. The same page mentioned food stamps and pop in cans.

Didn't the author tell us the parents of the McPheron brothers had died in an auto accident when the brothers were young? So there were automobiles at that time.

I picture Tom Guthrie's old faded Dodge pickup truck as a 1953 model and wonder how long it will keep running.

The author still does not allow the characters to use microwaves, dishwashers, cell phones, Google, e-mail, etc. That makes me think the story took place quite a while ago - or Holt, Colorado doesn't allow such modern conveniences.

I did enjoy the character development and found most of the characters quite likeable with the exception, of course, of the abusive Hoyt Raines.

In light of today's litigious society, it seems hard to believe that Rose would go out of her way to provide as much help as she did to her clients.

While reading this book, I watched for specially colored leaves that had freshly fallen from my maple trees. I was drawn to those with the same colors as the cover of Eventide. They are still resting peacefully in my book.