HousekeepingWinner of the Pen/Hemingway Award A modern classic, "Housekeeping" is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transcience. |
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arms began boat bridge coat cold crazy eights dark dogs door dream dress eyes face feet fell felt Fingerbone fingers fire flood floor girls gone graham crackers grandmother grandmother's gulls gunwale hair hands hear heard Helen housekeeping imagine John Jacob Astor kitchen knew lady lake leaves legs light Lily and Nona looked Lucille asked Lucille's MARILYNNE ROBINSON mother mountains National Book Award never night once orchard Orlon perhaps Pinking shears pinochle pockets porch pulled quiet remember road Ruthie seahorses seemed shoes shore shrugged side silence skirt sleep slid smell snow someone sometimes sorbed sound stairs stay step stone stood stove Sylvia Fisher Sylvie laughed Sylvie took Sylvie's tell things thought train trees truancies turned wait walked watch wind window woman woods