Housekeeping
by Marilynne Robinson(1980)
Novelc. 220 pages
“My name is Ruth. I grew up with my younger sister, Lucille, under the care of my grandmother, Mrs. Sylvia Foster, and when she died, of her sisters-in-law.”
Loading...
One great work, every day
by Marilynne Robinson(1980)
“My name is Ruth. I grew up with my younger sister, Lucille, under the care of my grandmother, Mrs. Sylvia Foster, and when she died, of her sisters-in-law.”
Marilynne Robinson(1980)
Ruth and Lucille, orphaned sisters in a small Idaho town, are raised by their aunt Sylvie, a transient who arrived with her belongings in shopping bags. Robinson wrote this as her first novel, and then published nothing for twenty-four years. The prose is luminous, patient, attentive to light on water and the silences between words. The lake that took their mother is always present. Sylvie's housekeeping is not what the town expects; she lets leaves drift in, stores cans in the living room, prefers darkness. The novel is about what constitutes home, and what happens when you refuse to stay in one. Robinson invented a language for attention itself.