Review: Our Souls at Night

Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ever since Stoner, I have been on the hunt for novels about small but meaningful lives. I read Plainsong by Kent Haruf earlier this year and felt it did that pretty well. I still mean to read the following two books in that group, but when I saw there was a movie made of this one I skipped the line to read it before watching.

Addie and Louis are both older people in Holt, Colorado, living alone, and Addie invites Louis over to spend the night. They get to know one another in a way they never had (both were friends with the spouses of the other but did not know each other that well) and don't hide their relationship, but then the town and their adult children have opinions about it. Addie's grandson comes to stay with her for a while, and most of the events of the book center around this event.

The movie was decent - Robert Redford is a good Louis although I'm not sure I'd cast Jane Fonda as Addie (but now I can't picture anyone else.) There is a scene in the book that I wish they'd kept in the film because I would have liked to see Robert Redford navigate a situation where his body failed him, but in that way the book feels more intimate than the movie, a little more raw and honest.

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