Summer Reading

Benediction, a novel by Kent Haruf, is the kind of quiet unassuming novel that lulls you into an extended meditation on dying, living and making mistakes. It's a good book to read this summer because it doesn't demand you know Latin or literary references that span the centuries.

It's the simple story of a good man, "Dad," who has a month to live and will spend his last days in his house in a small Colorado town with his wife, Mary. and daughter, Lorraine. Haruf has a wonderful way of illuminating everyday moments and mining them for meaning. Everyone except Mary, Dad's wife, who seems a saint, has done something they regret. In the case of Dad, it's that he fired an employee for stealing, and the man moved away with his family and eventually hanged himself. Worse though, is that he never fully accepted that his son Jack is gay. This wedge between father and son is lifelong, although there is a resolution at the story's end.

Books I'm Reading But Aren't Suitable for Summer

Ada by Vladimir Nabokov--you have to be a genius to read this book
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby, Jr.--makes you want to kill yourself or someone
The Kindly Ones, by Jonathan Littell--Man's capacity for murder chills you to the bone
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace--I've been reading this tome on and off since 2009. I wish they'd just make a movie of it already.