Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

This is a case of, I read a book and liked it so much I scoured the author's back catalog to see what else they had written that might be interesting. In this instance I did not have to go too far. Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novel Gilead (which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction) and two books of nonfiction. Housekeeping is her first novel.

The narrator is Ruthie a young school-age girl who lives with her sister in Fingerbone, a small town somewhere in the northwestern U.S. The novel begins with the death of her grandfather, before she is born, in a spectacular train accident. The train derails and plunges into the lake on the way into town. Ruthie's mother takes her own life by driving a car into the same lake, some years later. Subsequently, Ruthie and her younger sister Lucille move in with their grandmother and enjoy several stable years before she passes and the caretaker role is taken over by two elderly and worrisome great-aunts, who are not able to cope. They abandon ship as soon as they can get the girl's aunt Sylvie to move home and take up "housekeeping." Unfortunately, Sylvie is more into long aimless walks, collecting cans and newspapers and sitting in the dark than taking care of kids. Lucille, seeking a more conventional life, ends up breaking from the family, while Ruthie becomes consumed with the transient lifestyle.

Robinson is an elegant, if wordy, writer. Her writing is more like poetry, than prose in many places. One funny thing I found when I was reading the reviews, was that it is hard to know where the book is set and how old several of the characters are, yet many of the reviews say it is set in "Idaho" and give specific ages for Sylvie and Ruthie. I will agree with the review that calls this book a classic, no exaggeration there.