The mechanism of love remains a mystery. It cannot be quantified, but it can be described. This is what Kent Haruf achieved in his fifth and final novel, Our Souls at Night. It concerns an elderly couple who begin a new relationship with very specific boundaries. They have known one another only as longtime acquaintances, neighbors with a passing familiarity to one another and to each other’s long deceased spouses. The woman, Addie, approaches the man, Louis, and asks him to begin sleeping with her, but not sexually. Just sleeping in the same bed, talking, and somehow allowing each person to get through the night in restful sleep.
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
The mechanism of love remains a mystery. It cannot be quantified, but it can be described. This is what Kent Haruf achieved in his fifth and final novel, Our Souls at Night. It concerns an elderly couple who begin a new relationship with very specific boundaries. They have known one another only as longtime acquaintances, neighbors with a passing familiarity to one another and to each other’s long deceased spouses. The woman, Addie, approaches the man, Louis, and asks him to begin sleeping with her, but not sexually. Just sleeping in the same bed, talking, and somehow allowing each person to get through the night in restful sleep.