The characters in Plainsong

The main focus in Plainsong is about a pregnant teenage girl named Victoria Roubideaux that was forced out of her mother's home and is in search of a new one. She goes to the house of her caring teacher Maggie Jones and asks to stay with her, Ms. Jones welcomes in Victoria and things were going fine until Maggie Jones' father began attacking Victoria over his old brain's confusion. Victoria would not be able to last in that house, and she and Ms. Jones began looking for the perfect home for Victoria. Due to the very small and uncaring community of Holt, Colorado not many would accept Victoria in, except for the two McPheron brothers after some convincing.

Victoria, being a modern teenage girl and the McPheron brothers, being elderly and work on a farm, you would think this relationship would be a conflicting mess and it is, at first. Both Victoria and the McPherons argue against the middleman Maggie Jones when she tells the McPherons that this would be fun; saying: "'Fun,' he said. 'That's a nice word for what you're talking about. More like pandemonium and disruption...'" (Haruf, 110). When heading over the McPherons' for the very first time, Victoria asks Ms. Jones a plethora of questions, such as: "'Do they have a dog?... Do they have a cat?'" (Haruf 124). However, over the course of the book, Victoria began to get attached to the two brothers; this one quote show Victoria's true thoughts: "... she had gone out into the country with the two McPheron brothers and as unlikely as that had seemed that was turning out all right, and lately it was better than all right" (Haruf, 194-195). This reveals the theme of the book, that certain things may not turn out as they may seem. This is entirely true in my life and hopefully yours.

Here is an article with a basic biography of the author, Kent Haruf. It contains his life story and the impact it had on his writing; such as the setting being a rural town.

Plainsong Article

Here's a video about one guy who discusses his thoughts about Plainsong and why he enjoys it so much. Some things I really didn't think about but did enjoy!

Plainsong Video