Well, I solved the ‘what-to-read-next’ problem from a few days ago. The night before last I picked up Eventide, sat down and read it in one night. I read Plainsong about 4 years ago when I was traveling through Europe. I picked up a copy in Berlin at an English Language bookstore. That’s one of my favorite things to do in foreign countries—search out bookstores. Well, I needed something to read and it looked interesting. I sat in my hotel room for a whole afternoon, in a city I had never been before and had wanted to see for a long time, and read the entire book. It was that good. I have given it to several other people and they all loved it too. It remains one of the better books I have ever read. I mean, given that I read at least 50 books a year, and rarely remember them, the fact that I remember this one, read over 4 years ago—that means a lot.
I think Kent Haruf was trying to pull a repeat with Eventide. It follows several of the same characters from Plainsong: the McPheron brothers, Victoria Roubideaux, Tom Guthrie and his sons.Ket Haruf writes very well. His dialogue is amazing. Pondering the emptiness of the house once Victoria and her daughter have moved to college, Haruf writes this scene:

I’ll be up shortly. I want to sit here a while.
Don’t fall asleep down here. You’ll be sorry for it tomorrow.
I know. I won’t. Go ahead on. I won’t be long.
Harold started out of the room but stopped at the door and turned back once more. You reckon its warm enough in that apartment of hers? I been trying to think. I can’t recollect a thing about the termperature in them rooms she rented.
It seemed like it was warm enough to me. When we was in there it did. If it wasn’t I guess we’d of noticed it.
You think it was too warm?
I don’t guess so. I reckon we’d noticed that too. If it was.
I’m going to bed. It’s just goddam quiet around here is all I got to say.
I’ll be up after a bit, Raymond said.
I even like some of the new characters he introduces in Eventide, including a lonely 11 year old boy who lives with his distant grandfather. The problems I encountered in this book is that the stories don’t gel all that well. Maybe they are not meant to fit together like jig-saw puzzle pieces, but its almost like he is telling several disconnected stories in one book. And the stories don’t seem to go anywhere. I don’t think a book needs a plot to go somewhere, but he starts telling us about the lives of some of these people and then it sort of just drops off. I don’t want a resolution necessarily, but I also didn’t expect him to discuss a welfare family’s troubles for half the book and then suddenly stop.
All in all, I enjoyed reading the book, but I know Plainsong is a better book.