A Song about Motherhood

Sure, "Plainsong" is about a small town and its inhabitants, but at its core this novel shows that people need to feel protected, loved, and, well, mothered. Written in the third person without quotation marks (a style that flows beautifully once you're accustomed to it), "Plainsong" primarily follows Victoria Roubideaux, a pregnant teen, Maggie Jones, a local teacher who helps Victoria, Tom Guthrie, another teacher with two young boys, and the old McPheron brothers, who take Victoria in, through the nine months of Victoria's pregnancy.

Motherhood permeates the novel, whether it be in imagery or plot: Harold McPheron shoving his arm inside a heifer, feeling for "the larger swelling beyond" the cervix, as the brothers harshly but lovingly divide their cows between those who are pregnant and those who aren't; the little Guthrie boys wanting to sleep with their mom ("Couldn't they, this once? They were already in the bed.") on the last night before she leaves them and their father for good; Victoria cooking for the McPheron brothers like no one had since their own mother did; Maggie mothering her senile elderly father as she simultaneously acts as a surrogate mother for Victoria; old Iva Stearns baking oatmeal cookies with the Guthrie boys and proudly but sadly showing them pictures of her uniformed son who "died in the war. In the Pacific." Mothering and being mothered are our literal and spiritual lifelines, "Plainsong" suggests. If our biological mother isn't available, we must find a surrogate to give us the care and nurturing that we require.

Kent Haruf's writing style is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's in "All the Pretty Horses" (also excellent) and not just because they both forego quotation marks to set off speech. Both brilliantly weave the western landscape (Haruf, Colorado Plains and McCarthy, Texas) into the story, and both focus on quiet, independent, rugged, and big-hearted characters. There's a wonderful starkness to both novels: the characters don't talk more than they need to, and the authors give no more than necessary in their character descriptions.

Conversations in "Plainsong," for example, feel as though we're a part of them because the narration is so limited. Haruf uses few adverbs. We aren't told how a character says something; we are simply inserted into a conversation and are able to deduce tone and volume of voice, for example, from the words themselves. When their mother tells the Guthrie boys she's leaving, the sadness is more profound because we're not told that anyone is sad; the gravity of the situation and the sparse words tell us plenty:

"I wish you didn't have to go, Ike said.
I don't understand why you are, Bobby said.
It's hard to explain, she said. I just know I have to. Can you try to accept that, even if you don't understand it?
They didn't say anything.
I hope you can.
After a while she said, Do you have any more questions?
They shook their heads.
Do you think you can go to sleep?"

Besides its poignancy, this scene is particularly troublesome because while many of the other characters show a desperate need for mothering, the mother of these small boys inexplicably leaves them and their father.


The intentional starkness in "Plainsong" (intentional because it makes the story whole: the presentation of the characters mirrors the characters themselves as well as the stark Colorado Plains landscape) is a style that doesn't appeal to all readers. A masterpiece of unadorned prose, "Plainsong" might still at times feel monotonous. And the starkness leaves unanswered questions, such as why Victoria's mother never reappears in the story, particularly in such a small town (so small that Tom Guthrie's car is recognized by many as it sits out all night in front of a woman's house). But these are minor flaws. Overall, "Plainsong" is a beautiful story about our need to be connected to other people, especially those people who will act like a mother to us if ours is not around to do it herself.