Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (2015)

This beautiful book begins when seventy-year-old widow Addie shows up at widower Louis's house with a proposition: "I wonder if you would consider coming to my house sometimes to sleep with me?" she asks. "I'm lonely," she says. "I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk."

Thus begins a unique love story about two decent people in a small town at a time in their lives when public opinion and the urgency of sexual attraction have ceased to be important. Instead, with the wisdom gained from experience and awareness of past mistakes, the two come together through honesty and sharing, with no role playing or false expectations. Who has not longed for that kind of love?

The book is especially poignant when one knows the background of its writing: Kent Haruf had received a cancer diagnosis which gave him only months to live and was unsuccessfully attempting to keep his mind occupied by writing short stories, when he told his wife that he would "write a book about us." He died shortly after the book was completed. What a precious gift he gave her.

In a writing career that began late in life, Kent Haruf wrote simply about small town life with characters who were sometimes damaged but who were basically decent and well meaning. His novel Plainsong earned his first wide recognition, being a finalist for the National Book Award. It is one of the Top 100 of my favorite books ever.

I don't know if younger people would understand or treasure this book as I do, but I'm sure all above about 55 would. I finished it with tears running down my face, not at sadness about the ending of the book but at sadness about all the lonely people who never experience this kind of closeness.