By Trina Ortega

“Plainsong,” the Gordon Cooper Library’s selection for the One Book One Town community reading program, appears to be a popular choice. Library staff has had to put out pleas for readers to return copies, and Spanish language versions also are getting checked out. Even President Obama was hoping to read it while on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, The New York Times reported.  
Gordon Cooper Branch Manager Marilyn Murphy hopes that popularity translates into a well-attended, welcoming turnout for author Kent Haruf’s visit as part of the next One Book One Town event on Thursday, Oct. 15.
“This is a wonderful book, and it has been very well-received by the community,” Murphy said. “We hope all of the community will come to listen to this award-winning author speak.”
The Friends of the Gordon Cooper Library sponsor the One Book One Town series to encourage community members to read a “shared” piece of literature. The events include a free lecture and book signing by the author.   
Haruf will discuss his work at 7 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Roaring Fork High School auditeria. Local high school students also will have the chance to meet with Haruf in a small-group setting during the school day.
“Plainsong” and Haruf’s other work, including the recent “Eventide,” take place in the fictional eastern Colorado town of Holt.
About his real Colorado hometown, Haruf told bookpage.com: “The high plains of eastern Colorado is where I grew up. I had such affection for it as a kid, and I later taught school and high school out there for about seven years. So I know it well, probably better than any place else in the world. It's still the way I think the world should look.”
“Plainsong” winds through the lives of several members of the small town, where there are no secrets and everyone knows everyone else’s business. The reader comes to know a little more about each character’s story, which make up the chapters in the book, until their lives intersect via one resident.  
Among the characters are Tom Guthrie, a high school teacher by day but the husband of a depressed wife at home; the McPheron brothers, two bachelors who know little about the world beyond their farm gate; and Victoria Roubideaux, a pregnant 17-year-old with no place to turn.
“There’s not a lot of suspense here, plot-wise; you can see each narrative twist and turn coming several miles down the pike. What ‘Plainsong’ has instead is note-perfect dialogue, surrounded by prose that’s straightforward yet rich in particulars,” said reviewer Mary Park.
Others have described Haruf’s writing as “subtle,” “understated” and “spare,” which makes his work that much more graceful and striking.
It is through Haruf’s graceful prose that he explores our deeper need, no matter our demeanor and circumstances, to have a sense of place.
“Our lives are generally pretty messy,” Haruf told the Kansas City Star in a 2000 interview about “Plainsong.” “What I want to suggest at the end [of the book] is that at this point, at least this day and this point in their lives, all these people have found a place in a small community — it may even be an extended family — in which they can connect with other people and find solace and communion.”
“Plainsong” is the winner of a Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1999, The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The New Yorker Book Award. His novel “The Tie That Binds” received a Whiting Foundation Award and a special citation from the PEN/Hemingway Foundation.
Copies of the novel are available to borrow from the library. For more information, call 963-2889.

One Book One Town event

Kent Haruf, author of “Plainsong,” will visit the Roaring Fork High School Auditoria at 7 p.m on Oct. 15.