Victoria is a pregnant teenager whose mother locked the door on her. Why didn’t they ever get married? And have a family like everyone else? He took his hat off and scratched the back of his head and put his hat back on. After helping out they pay the boys ten dollars each, against the wishes of their father. The brothers have never married, live alone in the house they grew up in, left suddenly when both parents were killed in a car accident. They visit cattle ranchers, the McPheron brothers Raymond and Harold, to help out with the cows when they need an extra pair of hands. Tom takes care of his nine, ten-year-old boys because their mother is upstairs in her darkened room, disinclined to come out. We are introduced to a few members of the Holt, Denver community, each chapter headed with a name starting with the school teacher Tom Guthrie and his sons Ike and Bobby. The language is plain speaking and goes beyond what is said, sharing those unspoken moments that come from people who spend more time in proximity to the land and with animals and nature than humans. Plainsong is a what I’d call rural town domestic fiction, it reminds me of reading Anne Tyler, they’re like the yin and yang of small town America storytelling.
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