Our Souls at Night (Vintage Contemporaries)

Few authors can captivate with simple, straightforward, moving storytelling as well as Kent Haruf did. I've read every one of his novels, and each time I finished one, I was amazed by the power of his writing and the impact his characters had. I definitely felt the same way upon finishing his last novel, Our Souls at Night. In less than 200 pages, Haruf made me think and made me feel.

In this book, Haruf returned to the small town of Holt, Colorado, where his novel Plainsong took place. One day, 70-year-old widow Addie Moore goes to visit her widowed neighbor, Louis Waters. The two have always known each other, but were never friends. But that doesn't stop Addie from asking Louis a difficult question: would he be willing to come over to her house one night and sleep in her bed, and perhaps talk?

The idea throws Louis for a bit of a loop, but ultimately his curiosity and his desire for companionship wins out. It isn't long before the two develop a strong friendship, perhaps tinged with love and a gratitude for the sort of second chance each is giving the other. Of course, the town is ablaze with gossip about the two, despite the fact that both are widowed and in their 70s. And it isn't long before Louis' daughter and Addie's son try and convince their parents that this type of thing just isn't done, no matter what kind of comfort they bring to each other.

"But that's the main point of this being a good time. Getting to know somebody well at this age. And finding out you like her and discovering you're not just all dried up after all."

Louis and Addie spend their nights talking about their lives—their happy and sad moments, their regrets, their unfulfilled wishes. They discuss their relationships with their late spouses and their children. They talk about life. But most of all, they revel in each other's company, and they don't care what their fellow townspeople have to say about their relationship. And when Addie's grandson comes to stay with her for the summer, she sees Louis in a different light, and he gets the opportunity to be the father he wished he could have been to his own daughter.

I thought this was such a beautiful book, hopeful and even a little emotional. I honestly didn't understand everyone's objections to Louis and Addie's relationship, given their age and the fact that they were both widowed, and people's reactions, particularly Addie's son's, were the only thing that bothered me about this story. Louis and Addie are such wonderful characters and their story proves that sometimes it's worth taking a risk in order to find friendship and love.

I wasn't aware that Haruf died at the end of 2014, and that discovery saddens me a great deal. I'd encourage you to pick up Our Souls at Night as well as all of his other novels, and get a glimpse of his tremendous talent. The literary world lost an artist, but his beautiful work will live on, lucky for us.

I’ll come right out and say it. This book is one of the best books I’ve read in the last few years. I was hooked from page one and finished it in two sittings. I was torn between not wanting the story to end and being unable to put it down, wanting to know how the story ends.

It’s a short and very powerful read that has superb pacing and character development. It is the tender and poignant story of Addie Moore and Louis Waters, two widowed people in their senior years who are neighbors and both extremely lonely. The story opens simply and plainly, with Addie walking over to Louis’s house and making what, to him (and most people) an unusual proposition that would cure the loneliness they both feel, especially in the evenings. She proposes that he comes over to her house some nights, to spend the night in her bed with her and just talk, to help them both get through the lonely nights. She was not suggesting anything sexual and she tells him so; rather just lying in bed with another person to talk about themselves, their thoughts, their hopes and their dreams.

It works out quite well for a while, until word gets around that Louis is going over to Addie’s house at night and leaving in the mornings. Addie and Louis take the right approach by ignoring and not caring about the gossip and the judgmental stares from neighbors. They just go on doing something that brings them both much pleasure and contentment, until it becomes personal and Addie’s son (who had previously brought Addie’s young grandson over to Addie’s house to stay for the summer) becomes insistent that they stop seeing each other. What transpires after that is what this story is really about: people judging other people’s lives and the devastating effects that can have. Addie and Louis had developed a very close relationship with each other as well as with Addie’s grandson and this delicate and caring relationship among the three of them is threatened by the ensuing events.

At first, I must admit that I was put off by reading the dialogue without quotation marks. I found it awkward initially, but it took me very little time to adjust to it because it just seemed to fit the in the telling of the story somehow and is appropriate for the way the author chose to deliver the story to his readers. This technique served to show the characters’ thoughts in a straightforward manner and the dialogue itself has a simple clarity that is refreshing to read and rarely seen in contemporary writing.

This heartwarming story brought me close to tears several times. It’s an honest and unassuming statement about how people judge things they do not understand, the effects that can cause, and how two people can find exactly what they need in each other.

Our Souls at Night By Kent Haruf

Reviewed by Jay Gilbertson

This novel is barely 180 pages long. You can read it in one swoop. But don’t. Relish it. Take slow, easy bites; sit alone and be with author Haruf’s words. They’re gems. Each one selected as carefully as one gets dressed for church or a party or a funeral. I had the pleasure of listening to a talk by local author Nickolas Butler and he had this book in his hands as he took the podium. That was enough validation to read this for me. Need more? Haruf is the author of Benediction, Eventide, Plainsong, The Tie That Binds and Where you Once Belonged. Not only is the story totally and completely compelling, it is, but the writing. Well, here, have a chew on this; “That’s sort of like marriage, isn’t it.” “What is?” “Cold Feet.” “It can be.” “Yes. Well, I’m just going to say it.” “I’m listening,” Louis said. “I wonder if you would consider coming to my house sometimes to sleep with me.” “What? How do you mean?” “I mean we’re both alone. We’ve been by ourselves for too long. For years. I’m lonely. I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk.” There. That’s what the entire tale is built around. That question. Think about it. All the elderly that are shuffling through big, empty houses on streets like yours and mine. Maybe you know someone like Addie Moore or Louis Waters. We all do. They sit alone in movie theaters and are put in the back, if they even go, of restaurants. You see them at the mall walking in circles. Usually an older woman, but there are a lot of men out there too. Makes you wonder. And of course author Haruf takes it many steps further, this request to sleep together has ramifications. First, one of Addie’s kids has a boy that needs taking care of. A messy relationship isn’t panning out. The boy comes to live with Addie for a while. Add in gossip from nosey neighbors and you have a storm brewing out of, what you first imagined to be no one’s business but two old people trying not to be so alone. Yet, for a while, they find each other. “You’re being too hard on yourself again. Addie said. Who does ever get what they want? It doesn’t seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out of old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings. Except I still say that this isn’t true of you and me. Not right now. Not today.” There is a hitch, of course. I’m not going to spoil it for you because I know you’re going to read this. It should be on every book club’s list as this is a subject that is going to get more and more discussion as all the Baby Boomers out there find themselves in a very similar situation as Addie and Louis. What will you do?

• Email; jay@jaygilbertson.com

It was the great Henry David Thoreau who said, depressingly but tellingly, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” The older I become, the more convinced of that I am; and I think too that it applies more and more to people as they age, if they do not age particularly well. Here is a book that, said simply, is about two people who seek to break out of their quiet desperation, and about what happens to them when they do. The main characters are Addie and Louis, both in their seventies, both widowed and both acutely lonely. They are neighbors in the small town of Holt, on Colorado’s eastern plains. One night, Addie goes over to visit Louis and complains that she is having persistent trouble sleeping at night. She is lonely and misses the human contact, and tactile togetherness, of being married. She has a simple proposition: will he sleep with her, just sleep, so they can keep each other company and cure their loneliness and insomnia? He thinks about it and agrees, and there begins their unusual friendship and, eventually, romance. The small town is scandalized, assuming carnal doings. And so are their kids: Addie has a son in Grand Junction and Louis has a daughter in Colorado Springs. I read this book on vacation in Colorado Springs, and I was raised in Grand Junction, so it resonated particularly with me. When the kids find out that the sleepovers are innocent, they are even more outraged at the impropriety of such unconventional relations and implore them to stop and behave themselves. The book sustains an almost oppressive atmospheric tension, as if you are waiting for a thunderous storm to break on the plains on a hot summer day; you know unhappiness is coming, you just don’t know in what form. When it finally arrives, it is heart-breaking and the struggle for human contact and happiness goes on, bravely, as these two likeable characters try to escape lives of quiet desperation and the forces that want to oppress them: old age, society, family. It is a sort of inverted Romeo and Juliet, but with adults in modern times. It is a droll conceit, and it has been a long time since small town mores were so nicely exposed and skewered. But the reason this book is so popular is that it is imbued with a lovely humaneness and a touching empathy for characters near the end of their lives trying to make the most of life despite a host of difficulties oppressing them. This book has the same DNA as Wendell Barry’s superb "Jayber Crow" and David Guterson’s wonderful "East of the Mountains", both of which I loved. In "Our Souls at Night," we learn to love brave people making unconventional choices despite the narrowing and telescoping of freedoms and options in the later years of life. It is a wonderful journey.

3.5/5

It’s no secret that I like short books. When done well, they are concise and compact. There’s no added filler. There are no long, flowery descriptions. They make you think a little bit more. They pack a punch.

This book is a great example of a short book done well. Each conversation is pared down to its essence and lets you know a something more about Addie or Louis, their circumstances, their personalities, and their motivations. Haruf’s word choices and syntax decisions (like the opening sentence: “And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters.”) encourage you to think beyond what is written on the page.

But this book is not without its faults. The dialogue annoyed me, because Haruf doesn’t use quotation marks. Ever. The purposeful and blatant failure to follow basic rules of punctuation is one of my MASSIVE pet peeves. Quotation marks make dialogue much easier to read, people. I say, “Let’s all agree to use them. Please and thank you.”

When my aunt recommended this book, she warned that it is “probably a book for old folks,” and she’s absolutely right. That’s not to say that “young folks” (I flatter/fool myself by suggesting that I belong to that category anymore) can’t appreciate or enjoy it. I just think it would be more touching for those with a bit more life experience. It deals with subject matter (loneliness and companionship as you get older, reflecting on a life’s worth of experiences, dealing with the deaths of people close to you, making choices and sacrifices for your family) that would be particularly poignant if you had dealt with (or were in the position to deal with) similar stuff.

This book reminded me in many ways of Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending (which, interestingly, I recommended to my aunt a couple years ago): it is concise, not very uplifting, reflects on age/growing older, and would not be appreciated as much by youngsters. If you enjoyed The Sense of an Ending, you should add this book to your TBR list posthaste (and vice versa).