This morning I’m going to depart from my usual practice of reviewing a single book in order to pay tribute to the life-work of Kent Haruf, whom I would characterize as a superb writer of the heart. Again, I am surprised that I only recently heard of this amazing writer who died in 2014. For reasons hard to explain, I feel sad that I didn’t get a chance to read him while he was still alive. In the last two weeks, I have read up almost everything he published, including his posthumously published little novel, Our Souls at Night.Haruf’s writing is simple and bare-boned, and all of it centers on a single small town, Holt Colorado. There is a generosity of spirit in this man that shines forth from each of his short novels. Our northwest treasure, Ursula Le Guin, describes his lovely writing much better than I ever could.His courage and achievement in exploring ordinary forms of love—the enduring frustrations, the long cost of loyalty, the comfort of daily affection—are unsurpassed by anyth
