Before becoming a writer, Haruf worked in a variety of places, including a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Denver, a hospital in Phoenix, a presidential library in Iowa, an alternative high school in Wisconsin, and colleges in Nebraska and Illinois.
All[1] of Haruf's novels take place in the fictional town of Holt, in eastern Colorado.
Verlyn Klinkenborg called it "a novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader.
The novel was subsequently adapted in 2017 into a film by the same name, directed by Ritesh Batra and starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.
On November 30, 2014, Haruf died at his home in Salida, Colorado, at the age of 71, from interstitial lung disease.