What are the motifs in Where You Once Belonged: A Novel by Kent Haruf?

Marriage is a recurring theme in the narrative. The narrator of the book focuses on marriage for several reasons in this novel. First the narrator focuses on his own marriage, which is an unhappy one almost from the very beginning. Pat Arbuckle's wife is unhappy with him, with the town where he chooses to live, and marriage in general. Pat quickly finds himself searching for reasons not to go home at night. In the end, Pat and Nora's marriage fails when their daughter is killed in a car accident, taking away the only glue that kept them together.