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MOST people who descend into Denver by plane look west toward one of America's iconic sights, the vertebral ridge of the Rocky Mountains, where on a clear day you can see 20 of the 25 highest U.S. peaks outside Alaska. Only a few travelers look the other way, east across the flat High Plains that stretch not toward lofty slopes but toward empty ranch land, a mostly brown, mostly featureless plateau. The land here is harsh and dry, absolute and unforgiving, but to novelist Kent Haruf, it is the most compelling landscape on earth.
To understand Haruf's love for this land-why he has written about it obsessively in four novels, including the National Book Award-finalist Plainsong (Knopf, 1999) and his May release, Eventide (Knopf)-you have to know something about his background and about the kinds of lives that concern him. You have to know, too, that where others see only sagebrush, corrals, and a few mournful farmsteads, Haruf sees a microcosm. To him, the stark simplicity of the plains, where every tree or movement draws notice, gives humanity sharp definition. And the actions and desires of the people who live there fill the landscape with pathos and dignity.
Although he had already written two critically acclaimed novels-notably, his first book, The Tie That Binds (Holt, 1984), which won him a Whiting Writers' Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award-Kent Haruf seemed to burst onto the national literary scene in early 1999, when the buzz about Plainsong began. Independent booksellers were the earliest promoters, recommending Plainsong to their customers even before it was published and making it the top choice on their Web site, BookSense.com. Shortly thereafter, bellwethers Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly added their voices to the chorus of praise and, in a preview of upcoming books, Newsweek touted it, telling readers to "watch for fireworks over the plains."
And the fireworks came. Before the last starburst faded, Plainsong had been a finalist for the National Book Award, the American Booksellers Book Award, and awards from the New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times. It had also spent several weeks on the New York Times best-seller list (it continues to sell well, closing in on 800,000 copies), and won the Regional Book Award...