What do You think about Where You Once Belonged (2004)?
I picked up this book because I loved Kent Haruf’s other books, Plainsong and Eventide, and so when I saw that this one was set in the same fictional town in Colorado I expected it to have the same blend of gentle grace and gritty wisdom as the other two. Unfortunately this book fell far short of my expectations. This one was written before the other two and it seems to me that while Haruf succeeded in creating the small town ambiance and quirkiness of those who lived there, he hadn’t yet captured the heartfelt sense of genuine community that is such a distinctive element in the later books. Instead, from the very beginning of the novel right on through till the end there’s a heavy sense of foreboding as if Haruf wants the reader to be ready for things to go from bad to worse. We’re immediately introduced to local misfit Jack Burdette who pulls up in front of Ralph Bird’s Men’s Store after having been gone for 8 years during which time his high school sweetheart wife, Jesse, has had to scrape by on her own, eventually falling in love with the book’s narrator - a classmate of Jack’s who has stayed behind in Holt to work for the local newspaper. While the characters are well drawn, they’re no match for the people we meet in Haruf’s other two books – most notably the crusty old bachelor farmer McPheron brothers who together with the other members of the little town of Holt reveal the heart and soul of a small town community – something that is entirely missing in this novel.
—Trisha
In this spare novelette, Kent Haruf -- a master at exploring small town America -- tells the story of Jack Burdette, a natural-born bad boy whose selfish and pathological behavior forms the twisted spine of this book.Jack had once been the town hero, because as an oversized teen, he had been a brilliant football player, and even after he washed out of the University of Colorado as a freshman, the men of rural Holt, Colorado, decided he was the perfect choice to run the town grain elevator.Along the way, though, Jake simply takes and never gives. He treats women as objects, he holds forth with stories and jokes at bars at night as long as he's the center of attention, and eventually, he simply vanishes, leaving the town in the midst of scandal and loss.Until, years later, he reappears. And what happens then forms the gripping but sad ending to this story.The whole tale is related by the town newspaper editor, who went to school with Jack, and in the manner of small towns, knows something about everyone, as they do about him. He has his own losses and failed relationships to relate, but he does it all in an almost detached manner, which makes the events in some way all the more vivid, because they aren't shaded by his own emotions.There is much more I'd like to say about this, but I can't for fear of revealing key plot details. It's a quick read, and a worthwhile one.
—Mark
The prodigal son returns to his hometown of Holt, Colorado to what should have been his day of reckoning. Instead he will once again create havoc in someone else life. This novel took a turn I was not expecting and the ending was not one I expected at all.Once again , Haruf with his understanding of small towns and the people who inhabit them, writes a novel that is anything but simple. Using his spare style of prose but an intimate tone by our narrator, a young man who runs the local paper that his father ran before him, he presents this story of a man, who was once his friend, and the havoc this man causes in many lives. I will miss this man's writing, his simplicity yet earnestness in telling tales of ordinary people. He has one more book that comes out fairly soon and then no more.
—Diane S.✨
