Michael's Reviews > Benediction

This one made for a very satisfying return for me to the fictional rural community of Holt in the high plains of Colorado. As in his other books, we are treated to the stories of ordinary people struggling to make the most of their lives in the face of the unfulfilled dreams or lost people, all rendered in a spare prose and understated but rich dialog. People who try to rectify their past mistakes. And take the time to rejoice at the simple pleasures from the company of family and friends and the rhythms of the seasons.

For the story here a number of lives intersect over the impending death of “Dad” Lewis from cancer while he makes efforts to put his life and hardware business in order. His wife Mary can’t handle it all, and so accepts her daughter Lorraine’s offer to move in to help. The first of many benedictions. The one benediction Dad needs is the acceptance of love from him by his estranged son Frank, so some desperate efforts are made to reconnect with him. The one benediction he feels a special need to complete is for the wife of a man he fired for theft, which had a tough impact.

In the meantime, friendships between the Lewis family and people in their community take on a life of their own. Visits with the neighbor Berta May and her grand-daughter Alice, age 8, brings out the sympathies of many to make life better Alice, who has lost her parents. In this, Lorraine teams up with her mother’s friend Willa and her middle-aged daughter, Arlene, who is a loveless teacher after an unfortunate affair achieved notoriety many years back.

Another family to be graced by Haruf’s omniscient observer is that of the new church pastor, Reverend Lyle. The gossip machine tries to figure out why he lost his church in Denver and was assigned to the boonies. There is a point where he presses in a sermon on the contrast between Christ’s message of love and forgiveness and that evident in American commitment to its wars. There are some moving scenes where the congregation reacts badly, adding to Lyle’s awkward position with a wife and son unhappy with their displacement. Some in Dad Lewis’ circle take a shine to the brave pastor, and some of their forms of their support for him came the closest in the book to moving me to righteous tears.

Yes, Haruf plucks on your heartstrings, but it never feels like a gratuitous emotional wrenching. You end up feeling a better human from reading him, if not a bit wiser and stronger. I feel there are similarities with Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead” and Wendell Berry’s “Jayber Crow”, notably in how luminous points of reflection transform human connections to a balm for the dark parts of the human condition. There are a lot of great reviews from my Goodreads friends, but the lovely review by Will Byrnes had the most impact on moving me the read this gem.