Virginia Bailey (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 12, No. 3))
PLAINSONG is a wonderfully crafted novel that is more appropriate for adult and mature teenage readers because of the language of some of the characters and some explicit descriptions of sexual behavior. The setting is the small town of Holt, Colorado. Main characters are Tom Guthrie and his two sons. Guthrie is a high school teacher who is raising his two boys, Ike and Bobby, alone. Guthrie's wife, Ella, has retreated from the family, leaving him to care for the boys alone. The boys are trying to understand their home situation. A teenage girl, Victoria, pregnant and alone since her mother kicked her out of the house, is taken in temporarily by Maggie Jones, one of the local teachers. Maggie thinks she has the solution to the girl's problem. She arranges for Victoria to move in with the McPherons, two old and reclusive bachelor brothers living on a ranch miles from town. Their interaction is especially touching. Each chapter of the book relates the viewpoint of a different character and tells the ways all their lives intersect. The characters are remarkably kind and generous in spite of or maybe because of the hard times in their lives. The author provides the definition of plainsong as "the unisonous vocal music used in the Christian church from the earliest times: any simple and unadorned melody or air." The way he has chosen to tell this story is not a simple narration but rather a complicated going forward and backward from chapter to chapter as he relates each character's life. It is an admirable but complicated way of telling the "plainsong." Fiction. Grades 12 and up. 1999, Knopf, 301p, $24.00. Ages 17 up.

Alice F. Stern (VOYA, October 2000 (Vol. 23, No. 4))
Set in a small Colorado town, this novel centers on townspeople whose lives interconnect. The chapters alternate among the stories of these ordinary people. Tom Guthrie is a high school teacher who is left to raise his two sons, Ike and Bobby, when their mother descends into mental illness. At the same time, Tom is having trouble at school with a violent student. Victoria is a pregnant teenager whose mother has thrown her out of the house. The two elderly McPheron brothers are bachelors who live their solitary lives on their land. Maggie, another teacher at Guthrie's school, arranges for Victoria to live with the McPheron brothers, whose social skills are somewhat lacking but who try in their awkward ways to make Victoria feel at home. Although all the characters' troubles and worries are captivating, it is Victoria's problem that is most likely to engage teen readers. Handled by a lesser writer, some of these plots would be predictable, but Haruf's prose transcends any formula. The writing is simple and understated, with no quotation marks around the dialogue. The novel has a timeless quality to it. This gentle book is a beautiful read, appropriate for high school collections and public library young adult collections. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P S A/YA (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult-marketed book recommended for Young Adults). 1999, Random House, 301p, $24. Ages 15 to Adult.