Housekeeping
By Marilynne Robinson
- Release Date: 2004-11-01
- Genre: Literary Fiction
Description
Winner of the Pen/Hemingway Award
A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's 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.
Reviews
One of the best books I’ve ever read.
5By Joep2426The writing rivals any great author. Looking forward to her other works. This is a change your life sort of a book.Excellent Writing!
4By antywetThis story captured my heart..not your typical searching for relatives story. Stunning writing. Very inspiringAstounding
5By Alice anne 22The whole book made me cryWeird, long, incoherent story
1By Silly SalsterNot sure what the point was of this strange book.Stunning
5By Neka28oooRobinson's command of language is unique and beautiful. The land and the lake become metaphors that in turn are characters of sorts. This is not a beach read; this is a book that should be read slowly and in silence, as it is a work of art.Pretty amazing
5By Dwyer222Like reading a classic.