![]() 'I Refuse' by Per Petterson (translated by Don Bartlett).'What To Do When Someone Dies' by Nicci French.‘The Thing About December’ by Donal Ryan.‘A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939-1940’ and ‘War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary 1943-1944’ by Iris Origo.‘I Refuse’ by Per Petterson (translated by Don Bartlett).To find out more, visit my A Year With William Trevor page. Join 2,780 other subscribers Recent CommentsĬelebrate the work of William Trevor with a year-long read-along in 2023. I can’t recall the exact date, but it’s been in my TBR for less than a year. I was actually given a review copy prior to the novel’s publication in June 2015, but somewhere along the line it got misplaced (probably when I put all my non-Australian books in storage prior to my Reading Australia project in 2016), so had to buy my own copy. This is my 4th book for #20booksofsummer. It is a lasting tribute to a very fine writer indeed. People can do the unexpected.Īll Souls at Night is a truly lovely, delicate and eloquent read, bringing to mind the likes of Anne Tyler and many of the Irish prose writers I admire so much. But I can’t imagine two old ranchers taking in a pregnant girl. They did those other two, so I guess they might as well do this one too, Louis said. Addie said, Did you see they’re going to do that last book about Holt County? The one with the old man dying and the preacher. There was an advertisement in the Post about the coming theatrical season at the Denver Centre for the Performing Arts. On a Sunday they sat at the kitchen table over their morning coffee. And yet I also laughed a lot while reading this book, not least at the “in-jokes” Haruf includes that readers of his Plainsong trilogy will appreciate: Later, I could feel it splintering in two when things begin to go slightly awry. This makes for a super fast, uncluttered read.Īnd yet the novel is strangely powerful and incredibly moving, taking the reader from joy to sorrow to laughter and back again, all within the space of just 180 pages.įor example, when Louis makes the decision to buy a dog to provide companionship to Addie’s grandson, I could feel my heart leaping with the joy of it. It is a masterclass in letting nouns and basic verbs do all the work without being ably assisted by adjectives or extraneous detail. The story is written in typical Haruf style with pared-back, almost soporific prose, where every word is chosen as carefully as one might choose the pearls to thread onto a necklace. Both have adult children who don’t appreciate or approve of their nightly arrangement, and yet when Addie’s six-year-old grandson comes to live with her it is clear that her relationship with Louis provides the stability young Jamie needs. The narrative, mainly composed of dialogue (without the use of quotation marks), allows us to get to know both characters and their troubled pasts. What ensues is a relaxed, comfortable friendship in which they tell each other about their lives and share their innermost fears and secrets while they lie side by side in bed. The pair break with small-town social conventions and spend their nights sleeping in the same bed to ward off loneliness. It goes something like this: in Holt, Colorado (the same location used in all Haruf’s novels), an old lady (widow Addie Moore) invites an old man (her widowed neighbour, Louis Waters) to come sleep with her, but not in that way. Our Souls at Night is a wise and simple tale about growing older, the importance of doing your own thing and the value of companionship. That’s because Haruf died shortly before its publication (aged 71 in November 2014) and it felt too sad to read, knowing it was his final novel.Īs it turns out, the story it tells is as bittersweet as the circumstances in which I read it. If you have followed this blog for a while you will no doubt know that I am a Kent Haruf fan - indeed, he’s listed on my favourite authors page - but it was with some trepidation that I picked up his novel All Souls at Night. But maybe that could change? As Addie and Louis come to know each other better-their pleasures and their difficulties-a beautiful story of second chances unfolds, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer's enduring contribution to American literature.Fiction – paperback Picador 180 pages 2016. His daughter lives hours away, her son even farther, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in empty houses, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis's wife. ![]() In the familiar setting of Holt, Colorado, home to all of Kent Haruf's inimitable fiction, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Genre: Family,Books,Fiction & Literature,Romance,Literary,. ![]()
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