Plainsong
Submitted by Gail Mooney (profile)

Title and Author: Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Genre: Novel
Themes: Community, finding love, giving love

This is a spare, easy-to-read book that explores relationships in a small town, centered upon the predicament of a pregnant teenager and the two elderly bachelors who take her in when her mother throws her out. It also quietly weaves together the lives of a single father bringing up two young sons and an unmarried English teacher caring for her father, who has Alzheimer's disease.

This novel changes point of view so that the reader is able to see the world through the eyes of many characters, and, ultimately, the town itself becomes a primary force, since it is all about community and family and how they both define and nurture us.

The question I always start the class with is a written response piece:

In the novel Plainsong by Kent Haruf, the pregnant teenager, Victoria Robideaux, goes to her teacher Maggie when she finds herself homeless and from there to the McPheron brothers' farm. None of these people judges her: they simply help her.

Can you describe a time in your life when you needed the help of others and not their judgment? What was the help you needed, from where did you get it, and how did you avoid feeling judged?

Our discussion of the book centers primarily upon the importance of community, of feeling part of a larger whole. We talk about how alienation casts us all adrift, how this sense of not belonging leads us all to make poor decisions, and about where and how we can find or create a community for ourselves. I ordinarily save this novel for the end of the course when, in fact, the women agree that the class itself has become a sort of community wherein they feel accepted and heard and never judged. Everyone loves this book for its beautiful prose and calm revelations about character and setting. It is a very "healing" way to say goodbye.