Brothers in Arms

Haruf's style is a little like Cormac Mccarthy-lean, spare, missing punctuation such as quotation marks. Rural setting. Similar time period. (Full disclosure-I just read 3 Cormac McCarthy novels, one for a book club discussion). But, the drug war hadn't reached Haruf's Colorado as it had in McCarthy's border Texas; there is a tough and realistic, yet innocent, quality to many characters. People live on limited resources, but Haruf's stories are less about good and evil, and more about true-life situations. His characters breathe off the page. In fact, the dear McPheron brothers remind me of Matthew Cuthbert from
“Anne of Green Gables.” Kind, thoughtful, touched by and supportive of young people alone in the world (Victoria, DJ), but men of few words.

This book made me cry a few times, which hasn't happened in awhile-usually I just cry during “CBS Sunday Morning.”

Last month, my book club read “Spoon River Anthology” by Edgar Lee Masters and I notice a great many similarities. We hear from the voices of everyday fictional Holt, Colorado citizens, from poor, mentally challenged folks struggling to keep their family together, to an aging rancher, to a lonely young boy, whose loyalty to those who treat him well is fierce. Like Masters, the landscape is important and has a clear prairie feel to it.

“Eventide” is a portrait of a disappearing America. While I've compared it to three other books in this review, Haruf has his own style and is an author I'll be reading again.