‘Our Souls at Night’: Beautiful book inspires new adventures

There's a notion in popular culture that once you become elderly, all your best days are behind you: that there is nothing adventurous about aging. Author Kent Haruf quickly dispels this inaccuracy in his beautiful short novel, 'Our Souls at Night,” reminding us that life is for the living, not just the young, and that philosophical and emotional adventures can be riskier than physical.

Addie and Louis are neighbors who have lived down the street from one another for more than 40 years. Now both in their seventies, both widowed, Addie knocks on his door one spring day with a proposal.

'We've been by ourselves for too long ... I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk.”

It's not about sex, she clarifies. It's about having someone next to her in bed. 'Someone nice. The closeness of that. Talking in the night, in the dark. She waited. What do you think?”

And so the adventure begins. From page one this a small book about two elderly people is filled with page-turning suspense and wonder.

Haruf divides the novel beautifully between past and present. Addie and Louis' evenings are filled with conversations on their personal histories, lost dreams, past joys, while their days include new adventures: Addie learns to play catch; they go camping; they walk arm and arm down Main Street just to watch people stare.

But just when they are getting into a routine, Addie gets a call from her son: there is trouble in his marriage, and he sends his young son to stay with her. With her grandson now in the mix, Addie's relationship with Louis goes to a whole new level, angering their grown children who think they are acting foolish.

'You're acting like a teenager,” Louis' daughter tells him. 'I never acted like this as a teenager,” he tells her. 'I never dared anything. I did what I was supposed to.”

And the dares they take fill this short novel with a plenitude of graces, illuminated by Haruf's clear, striking language. He sticks to short, precise chapters, and his spare writing style leaves plenty of room for reflection, imagination, and investment. It's a beautiful book for the beginning of the New Year, inspiring adventures - both big and small - to come.