Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

Three years ago the terrific American novelist Kent Haruf passed away, but not before completing his final novel, Our Souls at Night (Knopf, 2015), which is an elegant swan song/love story worthy not only of its creator, but of its touching, senior-citizen couple—Louis and Addie, who now enjoy the cinematic afterlife of being portrayed by Robert Redford and Jane Fonda in the film version released on Netflix last month. Haruf is perhaps best known for his best-selling novel Plainsong (1999), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and for creating Holt, Colorado, a small town on the high plains in the eastern part of the state, of which he once said, “It’s not pretty, but it’s beautiful.” I knew Kent as a soft-spoken, kind gentleman, and one of our great contemporary Western writers. —William J. Cobb