Benediction

Dad Lewis, a hardware store owner in the small town of Holt, Colorado, learns that his cancer is terminal and that he has only a short time left. He and his wife, Mary, set about making those last weeks as peaceful as they can. Their daughter Lorraine comes back from Denver to help nurse him, and her presence is a comfort. It cannot fill the gap left by their son, Frank, who is estranged from the family and whose absence hangs over all three of them. The dying man's household is only one thread in the book. Next door, a young girl named Alice has come to live with her grandmother, and Dad's illness stirs up painful memories of her own mother's death. Elsewhere in town, the new preacher is trying to repair his strained relationships with his wife and teenage son. His job gets harder when his congregation turns cold on him for giving them more from the pulpit than they are used to hearing. An elderly widow and her middle-aged daughter move among their neighbors, doing what they can to ease everyone's burdens. Benediction takes place on the High Plains, the same setting as Kent Haruf's earlier novels Plainsong and Eventide. It follows these households through grief, regret and small acts of kindness, and shows how the people around them become a source of strength. By including every stage of life, from childhood to death, it gives a quiet, sad and clear-eyed picture of an ordinary community and the hopes that keep its people going.