{"product_id":"our-souls-at-night-isbn-9781101875896","title":"Our Souls at Night","description":"\u003cb\u003eA spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the familiar setting of Holt, Colorado, home to all of Kent Haruf’s inimitable fiction, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis’s wife. His daughter lives hours away in Colorado Springs, her son even farther away in Grand Junction, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in houses now empty of family, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Their brave adventures—their pleasures and their difficulties—are hugely involving and truly resonant, making \u003ci\u003eOur Souls at Night\u003c\/i\u003e the perfect final installment to this beloved writer’s enduring contribution to American literature.“More Winesburg that Mayberry, Holt and its residents are shaped by physical solitude and emotional reticence. . . . Haruf's fiction ratifies ordinary, nonflashy decency, but he also knows that even the most placid lives are more complicated than they appear from the outside. . . . The novel is a plainspoken, vernacular farewell.” —Catherine Holmes, \u003ci\u003eThe Charleston Post and Courier\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A marvelous addition to his oeuvre. . . . spare but eloquent, bittersweet yet hopeful.” —Kurt Rabin, \u003ci\u003eThe Fredericksburg Freelance-Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Lateness—and second chances—have always been a theme for Haruf. But here, in a book about love and the aftermath of grief, in his final hours, he has produced his most intense expression of that yet. . . . Packed into less than 200 pages are all the issues late life provokes.” —John Freeman, \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fitting close to a storied career, a beautiful rumination on aging, accommodation, and our need to connect. . . . As a meditation on life and forthcoming death, Haruf couldn’t have done any better. He has given us a powerful, pared-down story of two characters who refuse to go gentle into that good night.” —Lynn Rosen, \u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Enquirer\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A delicate, sneakily devastating evocation of place and character. . . . Haruf’s story accumulates resonance through carefully chosen details; the novel is quiet but never complacent.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Elegiac, mournful and compassionate. . .a triumphant end to an inspiring literary career [and] a reminder of a loss on the American cultural landscape, as well as a parting gift from a master storyteller.” —William J. Cobb, \u003ci\u003eThe Dallas Morning News\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fine and poignant novel that demonstrates that our desire to love and to be loved does not dissolve with age. . . . The story speeds along, almost as if it's a page-turning mystery.” —Joseph Peschel, \u003ci\u003eThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“By turns amusing and sad, skipping-down-the-sidewalk light and pensive. . . .  I recommend reading it straight through, then sitting in quiet reflection of beautiful literary art.” —Fred Ohles, \u003ci\u003eThe Lincoln Journal Star\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Haruf is never sentimental, and the ending—multiple twists packed into the last twenty pages—is gritty, painful and utterly human. . . . His novels are imbued with an affection and understanding that transform the most mundane details into poetry. Like the friendly light shining from Addie's window, Haruf’s final novel is a beacon of hope; he is sorely missed.” —Francesca Wade, \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Haruf was knows as a great writer and teacher whose work will endure. . . . The cadence of this book is soft and gentle, filled with shy emotion, as tentative as a young person's first kiss—timeless in its beauty. . . . Addie and Louis find a type of love that, as our society ages, ever more people in the baby boom generation may find is the only kind of love that matters.” —Jim Ewing, \u003ci\u003eThe Jackson Clarion-Ledger\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“There is so much wisdom in this beautifully pared-back and gentle book. . . a small, quiet gem, written in English so plain that it sparkles.” —Anne Susskind, \u003ci\u003eThe Sydney Morning Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“His great subject was the struggle of decency against small-mindedness, and his rare gift was to make sheer decency a moving subject. . . . [This] novel runs on the dogged insistence that simple elements carry depths, and readers will find much to be grateful for.” —Joan Silber, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In a fitting and gorgeous end to a body of work that prizes resilience above all else, Haruf has bequeathed readers a map charting a future that is neither easy nor painless, but it’s also not something we have to bear alone.” —\u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Utterly charming [and] distilled to elemental purity. . . . such a tender, carefully polished work that it seems like a blessing we had no right to expect.” —Ron Charles, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Haruf spent a life making art from our blind collisions, and \u003ci\u003eOur Souls at Night \u003c\/i\u003eis a fitting finish.” —John Reimringer, \u003ci\u003eThe Minneapolis Star Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Haruf once again banishes doubts.  Our souls can surprise us.  Beneath the surface of reticent lives—and of Haruf’s calm prose—they prove unexpectedly brave.” —Ann Hulbert, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Blunt, textured, and dryly humorous. . . this quietly elegiac novel caps a fine, late-blooming and tenacious writing career. . . . Haruf’s gift is to make hay of the unexpected, and it feels like a mercy. . . . This is a novel for just after sunset on a summer’s eve, when the sky is still light and there is much to see, if you are looking.” —Wingate Packard, \u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A parting gift [and] a reminder of how profoundly we will miss Holt and its people, and Kent Haruf's extraordinary writing.” —Sandra Dallas, \u003ci\u003eThe Denver Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Short, spare and moving...\u003ci\u003eOur Souls at Night \u003c\/i\u003eis already creating a stir.” —Jennifer Maloney, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKENT HARUF\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of five previous novels (and, with the photographer Peter Brown, \u003ci\u003eWest of Last Chance\u003c\/i\u003e). His honors include a Whiting Foundation Writers’ Award, the Mountains \u0026amp; Plains Booksellers Award, the Wallace Stegner Award, and a special citation from the PEN\/Hemingway Foundation; he was also a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the New Yorker Book Award. He died in November 2014, at the age of seventy-one. \u003c\/p\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters. It was an evening in May just before full dark.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey lived a block apart on Cedar Street in the oldest part of town with elm trees and hackberry and a single maple grown up along the curb and green lawns running back from the sidewalk to the two-­story houses. It had been warm in the day but it had turned off cool now in the evening. She went along the sidewalk under the trees and turned in at Louis’s house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Louis came to the door she said, Could I come in and talk to you about something?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey sat down in the living room. Can I get you something to drink? Some tea?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo thank you. I might not be here long enough to drink it. She looked around. Your house looks nice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDiane always kept a nice house. I’ve tried a little bit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt still looks nice, she said. I haven’t been in here for years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe looked out the windows at the side yard where the night was settling in and out into the kitchen where there was a light shining over the sink and counters. It all looked clean and orderly. He was watching her. She was a good-­looking woman, he had always thought so. She’d had dark hair when she was younger, but it was white now and cut short. She was still shapely, only a little heavy at the waist and hips.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou probably wonder what I’m doing here, she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, I didn’t think you came over to tell me my house looks nice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo. I want to suggest something to you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes. A kind of proposal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOkay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot marriage, she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn’t think that either.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it’s a kind of marriage-­like question. But I don’t know if I can now. I’m getting cold feet. She laughed a little. That’s sort of like marriage, isn’t it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat is?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCold feet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt can be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes. Well, I’m just going to say it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m listening, Louis said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wonder if you would consider coming to my house sometimes to sleep with me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat? How do you mean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI mean we’re both alone. We’ve been by ourselves for too long. For years. I’m lonely. I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe stared at her, watching her, curious now, cautious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou don’t say anything. Have I taken your breath away? she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI guess you have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m not talking about sex.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wondered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo, not sex. I’m not looking at it that way. I think I’ve lost any sexual impulse a long time ago. I’m talking about getting through the night. And lying warm in bed, companionably. Lying down in bed together and you staying the night. The nights are the worst. Don’t you think?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes. I think so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI end up taking pills to go to sleep and reading too late and then I feel groggy the next day. No use at all to myself or anybody else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ve had that myself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I think I could sleep again if there were someone else in bed with me. Someone nice. The closeness of that. Talking in the night, in the dark. She waited. What do you think?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t know. When would you want to start?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhenever you want to. If, she said, you want to. This week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet me think about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll right. But I want you to call me on the day you’re coming if that happens. So I’ll know to expect you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ll be waiting to hear from you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat if I snore?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen you’ll snore, or you’ll learn to quit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe laughed. That would be a first.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe stood and went out and walked back home, and he stood at the door watching her, this medium-­sized seventy-­year-­old woman with white hair walking away under the trees in the patches of light thrown out by the corner street lamp. What in the hell, he said. Now don’t get ahead of yourself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe next day Louis went to the barber on Main Street and had his hair cut short and neat, a kind of buzz cut, and asked the barber if he still shaved people and the barber said he did, so he got a shave too. Then he went home and called Addie and said, I’d like to come over tonight if that’s still all right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes, it is, she said. I’m glad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe ate a light supper, just a sandwich and a glass of milk, he didn’t want to feel heavy and laden in her bed, and then he took a long hot shower and scrubbed himself thoroughly. He trimmed his fingernails and toenails and at dark he went out the back door and walked up the back alley carrying a paper sack with his pajamas and toothbrush inside. It was dark in the alley and his feet made a rasping noise in the gravel. A light was showing in the house across the alley and he could see the woman in profile there at the sink in the kitchen. He went on into Addie Moore’s backyard past the garage and the garden and knocked on the back door. He waited quite a while. A car drove by on the street out front, its headlights shining. He could hear the high school kids over on Main Street honking their horns at one another. Then the porch light came on above his head and the door opened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat are you doing back here? Addie said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI thought it would be less likely for people to see me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t care about that. They’ll know. Someone will see. Come by the front door out on the front sidewalk. I made up my mind I’m not going to pay attention to what people think. I’ve done that too long—­all my life. I’m not going to live that way anymore. The alley makes it seem we’re doing something wrong or something disgraceful, to be ashamed of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ve been a schoolteacher in a little town too long, he said. That’s what it is. But all right. I’ll come by the front door the next time. If there is a next time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDon’t you think there will be? she said. Is this just a one-­night stand?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t know. Maybe. Minus the sex part of that, of course. I don’t know how this will go.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDon’t you have any faith? she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn you, I do. I can have faith in you. I see that already. But I’m not sure I can be equal to you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat are you talking about? How do you mean that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn courage, he said. Willingness to risk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes, but you’re here.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302841274597,"sku":"NP9781101875896","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781101875896.jpg?v=1767734343","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/our-souls-at-night-isbn-9781101875896","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}