What? How do you mean? I mean we are both alone. I wonder if you would consider coming to my house sometimes to sleep with me.

Well, I didn't think you came to tell me that my house looks nice. So Addie visits Louis one night and comes up with a rather unique proposition: You are probably wonder what I'm doing here, she said. Louis and Addie are both widowed, lonely and in their twilight of their lives. Although, I do wish the ending was different.This is low-key, evocative short novel about the pursuit of happiness, second chances and perhaps most importantly about our need for companionship and intimacy. It might seem like an odd story to some, but for me it was a charming and heartbreaking read. This book is less than 200 pages and yet it is impactful enough to leave us readers pondering over the plain truth that life’s simple and irrelevant moments are in fact more relevant than we understand. Its with stories like these that we realize, that elaborate plots and pages upon pages of words are not necessarily needed to tell an emotional and heartwarming tale. I won’t reveal any more, and like I said before, the plot is minimalistic but the emotions are overflowing everywhere if you care to look. But its a small town and people talk, they spread rumors too and so unfolds the story. And gradually night after night as they talk they open up more about their hopes and dreams, regrets and sorrows. Don’t you think?Īnd just like that, Addie and Louis decide to overlook the norms of society and find solace in the company of each other. Lying down in bed together and you staying the night. I’m talking about getting through the night. He stared at her, watching her, curious now, cautious. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. One day Louis finds Addie on her doorstep asking him if he’d like to spend a few nights with her, because she has difficulty sleeping. However, they had never really gotten a chance to get to know each other. They both live in the small town of Holt, Colorado and have been neighbors since a long time. The story in itself is pretty straightforward, but if you look beyond what’s obvious, this simple tale is full of little hidden wisdoms.Īddie and Louis are two widowed, lonely people in their seventies. Booktimistic Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review:īeautiful, bittersweet and deeply moving, Our Souls at Night is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. And the subtle denouement then sweeps both of these amazing people forward-heartbreakingly, hearteningly into the unknown. As are the things that jeopardize them, from the death of a mutual friend to family tensions that suddenly test Addie and Louis’s ability to withstand them. A camping trip in the mountains, a trip to the county fair, simple pleasures that are a hallmark of Haruf’s fiction. Jamie is confused and hurt, of course, but gradually finds comfort in the company of his grandmother and her friend Louis, neither of whom has spent much time with kids in years but in turn learn how to all over again. This unusual arrangement, as Addie predicted, provokes local comment, and then the disapproval of their children, and their nightly pattern is further disrupted when her son, whose wife has departed for California, asks Addie to take in his six-year-old son, Jamie, for the summer while he tries to solve his various troubles. And so their lives now find a new rhythm and their conversations range freely, if sometimes haltingly, through their personal histories: his work as a high school English teacher the loss of her teenage daughter, and the harm this did to her marriage as well as their son his brief affair, as a young husband and father, which Addie had heard about their youthful aspirations and middle-age disappointments and compromises the joy both feel in at last being able to express the woof and weave of their experiences. Louis is surprised, even shocked, that she would’ve thought of him, though he soon is brave enough to try, impressed by the courage of her proposal. What Addie has come to ask-since she and Louis have been living alone for so long in houses now empty of family, and the nights are so terribly lonely-is whether he might be willing to spend them with her, in her bed, so they can have someone to talk with. His daughter, Holly, lives hours away in Colorado Springs her son, Gene, even farther away in Grand Junction. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have long been aware of each other, if not exactly friends in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis’s wife. In the familiar setting of Holt, Colorado, home to all of Kent Haruf’s fiction, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters.

Our souls at night book plot haruf