8 /10 1 Votes8
Country United States Publication date October 1999 ISBN 0-375-40618-2 Genre Fiction | 4/5 Goodreads Language English Pages 301 Originally published October 1999 Page count 301 Publisher Alfred A. Knopf | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (hardback & paperback) Characters Victoria Roubideaux, Raymond McPheron, Harold McPheron, Ike Guthrie, Maggie Jonas, Tom Guthrie, Bobby Guthrie Similar Kent Haruf books, Saga books, Novels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Plainsong is a bestselling novel by Kent Haruf.
Contents
Set in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado, it tells the interlocking stories of some of the inhabitants.
The title comes from a type of unadorned music sung in Christian churches, and is a reference to both the Great Plains setting and the simple style of the writing.
The novel was adapted in 2004 into a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie on CBS.
Plot summary
The book follows several stories of families in a small town in eastern Colorado. Maggie is the link between many of the other characters and strands of the novel. She introduces Victoria to the McPheron brothers, and has a romantic relationship with Tom.
Central characters
Critical reception
The New York Times called it "a novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader." and Salon described reading the book as "like being in an expertly piloted small plane, finding yourself flying low and smooth over the suddenly wondrous world below". Plainsong won the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award, the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The New Yorker Book Award.