She moans along with the woman who is singing -- wailing, really -- her hands gripping the steering wheel to the plangent cries of the singer and the sobbing of violins.
-- Alice Walker, By the Light of My Father's Smile
What undoubtedly touched those soldiers is the play's plangent nostalgia, the ache for home, for home's rootedness and security.
-- J. D. McClatchy, "Wilder and the Marvels of the Heart", New York Times, April 13, 1997
