Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful read
Review: After reading Plainsong, I was hungry for more Haruf. This book is very different but I wasn't disappointed at all. It is different because it tells one story with its rippling effects. Its scope is narrower yet eqully rich. There is more reflecting and less action, but I cannot criticize it for that. I was immediately drawn into the narrator's tongue in cheek honesty as he tells the life story of his neighbor, now elderly, in a hospital bed, and charged with murder. The characters are wonderfully faceted and unusual yet real; their actions are understated and at times left to speculation. Haruf is a great storyteller and I hope he has many more stories to tell.
Rating:
Summary: Searing Truth and Incredible Beauty
Review: After reading PLAINSONG, which I could not put down--I stayed up until 4AM to finish it--I was relieved to find two more novels by this writer. The TIE THAT BINDS has so much truth I called people on the phone to read them passages. These characters are completely real to me now, so much so that it feels strange to remember that I met them in a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting story that gives much to think about
Review: After reading this book, one looks at the often thin and temporary relationships of family today in a different light. This book creates characters that are real, human, and honorable; yet, you wonder if you admire or pity them
Rating:
Summary: The Tie that Binds will move you
Review: Especially if your background or your family's heritage is from our country's heartland. It is unbelieveable to me that this is Ken Haruf's first novel. These customers are alive, full of passion with tremendous emotion and humor.
Rating:
Summary: A Clear Eye to Duty
Review: Fifteen years before he wrote his masterpiece Plainsong, Kent Haruf produced this gem. The Tie That Binds will surely find readers as a result of Plainsong, a fine story about brothers and loneliness and tenacity in the High Plains community of Holt, Colorado. Haruf's first novel also features the relationship between siblings, the dutiful Edith Goodnough and her simple brother Lyman, both children of failed homesteaders condemned to a hard life on a dryland farm south of Holt. She is, in the words of the narrator, Sanders Roscoe, her admiring neighbor from the adjacent ranch, a person who "continued to endure by plain courage and a clear eye to duty." In her 80 years, Edith has known 4 men well - her own flawed father and his feckless son Lyman - and another father and son, John and Sanders Roscoe, who are the only persons in the world who truly understand her courage, incredible sense of duty, and beauty. But, as Sanders says "understanding it doesn't mean liking it". Edith's story is haunting yet inspirational. Sanders wonderful narration is filled with the stoic truths of the Great Plains: "Life ain't fair" and "If you can't understand it, you just have to accept it" and "It wasn't anybody's fault. It happened; that's all." The tenor of The Tie That Binds is reminiscent of a two very different classics of the Plains: Larry McMurtry's "Last Picture Show" and Ole Rolvaag's "Giants in the Earth." Having grown up on the Eastern Colorado plains, I swear I know many of the characters. They are as genuine as the real article and every bit as tragic. Five stars without reservation.
Rating:
Summary: A Clear Eye to Duty
Review: Fifteen years before he wrote his masterpiece Plainsong, Kent Haruf produced this gem. The Tie That Binds will surely find readers as a result of Plainsong, a fine story about brothers and loneliness and tenacity in the High Plains community of Holt, Colorado. Haruf's first novel also features the relationship between siblings, the dutiful Edith Goodnough and her simple brother Lyman, both children of failed homesteaders condemned to a hard life on a dryland farm south of Holt. She is, in the words of the narrator, Sanders Roscoe, her admiring neighbor from the adjacent ranch, a person who "continued to endure by plain courage and a clear eye to duty." In her 80 years, Edith has known 4 men well - her own flawed father and his feckless son Lyman - and another father and son, John and Sanders Roscoe, who are the only persons in the world who truly understand her courage, incredible sense of duty, and beauty. But, as Sanders says "understanding it doesn't mean liking it". Edith's story is haunting yet inspirational. Sanders wonderful narration is filled with the stoic truths of the Great Plains: "Life ain't fair" and "If you can't understand it, you just have to accept it" and "It wasn't anybody's fault. It happened; that's all." The tenor of The Tie That Binds is reminiscent of a two very different classics of the Plains: Larry McMurtry's "Last Picture Show" and Ole Rolvaag's "Giants in the Earth." Having grown up on the Eastern Colorado plains, I swear I know many of the characters. They are as genuine as the real article and every bit as tragic. Five stars without reservation.
Rating: 
Summary: Heroism on the High Plains
Review: Haruf's first novel asks the reader to think about responsibility, family, place, community: what they mean, what we value. Fifty-year-old Sanders Roscoe sits himself down to tell us the story of Edith Goodnough and Sanders Roscoe, of the Roscoe family and Goodnough family, of the High Plains town of Holt, Colorado, from the late 19th Century to the 1970s. He shows us a woman who simply does what needs doing, no matter how staggering the burdens may appear to us [including the twice-daily milking of cows that, after reading Roscoe's heated description, the reader will forever understand as not even remotely romantic or amusing]. With wry humor, no shortage of anger, a good deal of plain speaking, and a pace that allows for digressions, imagings, and timely withholdings and revealings, Roscoe looks at the stuff of Edith's stay-at-home life and challenges us to see her as anything other than heroic.
Rating:
Summary: A new fan
Review: I am a new fan of Haruf & Holt County. I have read this book & Where you once belonged. Next is Plain Song. This was a great book. It was a very fun, fast read. Once I started, I didn't want to put the book down. There really aren't any big surprises in the book, if you are looking for a murder mystery, which i kind of thought it would be. However, there were some surprises in the unfoldings of the lives of the characters, amazement of what it was like to be them. I recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to PLAINSONG standard
Review: I loved PLAINSONG but I don't agree with others here that this novel matches it. Someone mentioned it being slow and that's the key phrase. Whew! There are some real and painful truths here, but getting to them was monotonous for me.
Rating:
Summary: A Warm and Compelling Book
Review: I picked out this book by Kent Haruf in one of those rare moments when I didn't have any information on it that had led me to it. Not knowing anything about it, I read the brief synopsis on the back cover, thumbed through it and took a chance. How exciting it is to find a goldmine! This book had my attention from the first page. The writing style is smooth and inviting and kept my attention without being so bold and obvious. Kent Haruf was brilliant in his choice of who to tell the story. The neighbor, Sanders Roscoe, tells the details that unfold the plot. This proved to be a very creative move. You really get a broad view of the story line and its important characters from this view. It's very comfortable and at times it almost feels like the neighbor is really talking to you. I highly recommend this book!
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