El vínculo más fuerte

It is the spring of 1977 in Holt, Colorado. Octogenarian Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed and a policeman watches over her room. A few months earlier, a fire destroyed the house where Edith lived with her brother Lyman hers, and now she is charged with her murder. One day, a journalist comes to town to investigate the incident and addresses Sanders Roscoe, the neighboring farmer, who, to protect Edith, refuses to speak. But finally it is the voice of Sanders that will tell us about his life, a story that begins in 1906, when Edith and Lyman's parents came to Holt in search of land and fortune, and will span seven decades. In this first novel, Kent Haruf takes us to the arduous rural America, a landscape made of ears of corn, grass and cows, starry skies in summer and abundant snow in winter, where there is an indisputable code of conduct, linked to the land and the family, and where this woman will sacrifice her years in the name of duty and respect and then, with a single gesture, claim her freedom. Haruf tells us about his characters without judging them, from the deep trust in the dignity and tenacity of the human spirit that has made his literary voice unmistakable.