Our Souls at Night---book club discussion

Yesterday our book club met at my house to discuss Kent Haruf's last book, Our Souls at Night. Attendance at the meeting was way down, only four gals attended, but we had a spirited discussion over this short, gem of a book.

In summary:  Addie and Louis, both in their seventies with dead spouses and long-time friends, decide to spend their nights together for companionship and comfort. Nights are the worst for loneliness. They live in a small town and it doesn't take long for the gossips in town to start talking. Addie and Louis decided before they started the sleeping arrangement that they weren't going to sneak around and act guilty, so they ignore or tell off their detractors. Both of their grown children weigh in, as well, being unhappy that their parents are behaving in this manner. But both Addie and Louis find comfort in the new arrangement and are able, finally, to reveal parts of themselves which they have hidden or felt guilt about for years through their night talks. Part of the way through the summer, Addie's grandson, Jamie, comes to live with her. Louis helps her with the boy and they spend precious moments together with him. But the detractors do not let up and soon Addie can not stand the pressure. The book ends on a sad but possibly hopeful note.

About Kent Haruf: The author, made famous for his Plainsong Trilogy set in rural Colorado, received a terminal lung disease diagnosis before he embarked on writing Our Souls at Night. Instead of sitting around waiting to die, he went out to his writing shed and tried to write a short chapter every day. He liked to type with his eyes shut so he could imagine his characters and the setting better. He created a quiet, moving story with few words using this technique. Haruf didn't get published until he was in his forties. Up to that point he was a high school English teacher. He later went on to teach writing at the college level, helping other prospective writers with writing tips he learned along the way. He would tell them to not let the pilot-light of talent they have go out. Their talent needed to be tended every day, with persistence. Read this obituary to find out more about this author.

Discussion questions: It is possible to find book club discussion questions for almost all books today, but often the questions that are offered do not go very deep or generate thoughtful discussions. Here are the KnopfDoubleday discussion questions. We used many of their questions. In addition, we grappled with others of our own making.

1. What did you like/dislike about the book? Everyone liked the book a lot and for different reasons. We discussed those reasons. One gal, whose husband died a few years ago, said she could really relate to the reasons that Addie and Louis got together and the awkwardness that accompanied the beginnings of their arrangement. Several of us talked about liking the way that Addie and Louis treated the boy, Jamie. Three scenes stuck out in our minds: camping, getting the dog, and teaching him to play catch. One gal did identify one thing about the book which bothered her---no quotations around the dialogue. But because the book was heavy on dialogue, it wasn't a big distraction.
2. What were the themes of the book? We were able to identify lots of themes---the need for physical touch at every age; life in a small town; treatment of the elderly; family issues; issues related to grief and guilt. I felt that the last theme, grief and guilt, played into so many of the actions of our characters. As the relationship between Addie and Louis deepened they were able to shed some of their guilt for events that happened earlier in their lives, but then we saw their children come back and attempt to throw that guilt right back on them. Family dynamics, especially around finances, factored into our discussion heavily.
3. Compare Kent Haruf's writing style to other authors. What did you think of his writing? None of us are big know-it-alls about literary styles and writing but we all appreciated the shortness of the book and the spare use of description. I thought that perhaps Haruf could be compared to Hemingway, who famously worked at being concise and spare in his writing. In his last interview, Haruf said, "I think I have written as close to bone as I could."
4. Talk about the beginning and the ending of the book. How do they help the reader imagine the story 'before and after' the confines of the book? We noted that the first sentence started with the "And", which we've never noticed before in any books. Starting with "And" forces the reader to think about what happened before the print on the first page. What a very clever technique. None of us liked the ending. In fact, when my husband and I listened to the audiobook together, he rated the book as a 'two' due to the ending. None of us were as harsh as Don was about the ending, but we decided that the ending gave us something to think about. We could imagine where the story went from there. It gave our brains room to imagine several alternative endings, which, in my books anyway, is a good way to end a story.
5. Kent Haruf was a high school teacher in his early life. He and his wife were friends in high school before marrying other people and having their families. When they got together late in life, one of their favorite things to do together was to talk in bed at night. How do these two things affect how you like the book? The author? Since we all worked at a high school (that is how we formed our book club, we all worked at the same high school), it was fun to think of Haruf as one of us. Though the story wasn't autobiographical, it was easy to read because Haruf put things he knew into the story. It was obvious that he loved his characters and cared what happened to them...so we did, too.

Books often improve in my estimation after a good, spirited discussion over them. This was the case with Our Souls at Night. Listening to others talk about what they liked about the book helped me to identify what I liked about it. That is the beauty of book clubs--- First, that one is forced to read a book they wouldn't have selected otherwise, and then, knowing that it will be discussed, it forces the reader to pay attention to details beyond the obvious.

Print: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, Knopf Publishing, 2015.

I listened to the Audiobook version, by Random House Audio, read by Mark Bramhall, who did a wonderful job with his old-west sounding voice.

Book Beginnings: 

"And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters. It was an evening in May just before full dark."

Comment: I think it is a very interesting literary technique to start a book with the word AND. It invites the reader to think about what might have happened before the stuff in the book happened.

(Book Beginnings is hosted every Friday by Rose City Reader. Join in the fun. Grab your current read and share the first line! Tell us what you think of the quote in the comments below!)