| Housekeeping | |
|---|---|
1st edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Marilynne Robinson |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date | 1980 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 219 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-374-17313-3 (first edition, hardcover) |
| OCLC Number | 6602826 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.54 19 |
| LC Classification | PS3568.O3125 H6 1980 |
Housekeeping is a novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson. It was published in 1980, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (which Robinson would eventually win for her second novel, Gilead), and given the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel.
In 2003, the Guardian Unlimited named Housekeeping one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.[1] Time magazine also included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.[2], describing the book thus: "Haunting, poetic story, drowned in water and light, about three generations of women."
Contents |
Ruth narrates the story of how she and her younger sister Lucille are raised by a succession of relatives in the fictional town of Fingerbone, Idaho (some details are similar to Robinson's hometown, Sandpoint, Idaho). Eventually their aunt Sylvie (who has been living as a transient) comes to take care of them. Initially they become a close knit group, but as Lucille grows up she comes to dislike their eccentric lifestyle and she moves out. Then when Ruth's well-being is being questioned by the courts, Sylvie returns to living on the road and takes Ruth with her.
The novel treats the subject of housekeeping, not only in the domestic sense of cleaning, but in the larger sense of keeping a spiritual home for one's self and family in the face of loss, for the girls experience a series of abandonments as they come of age.
The events take place in an uncertain time, in that no dates are mentioned; however, Ruth refers to her grandfather living in a sod dugout in the Midwest, before his journey to Fingerbone, while she herself traverses adolescence sometime in the latter half of the 20th century, as Ruth reads the novel Not as a Stranger, a bestseller from 1954.
Ruth the narrator of the story. Ruth narrates from the perspective of the Transparent eyeball. This narration style was used by the trancendentalist authors that influenced Marilynne Robinson, including Ralph Waldo Emerson.[3]
Lucille Ruth's younger sister.
Helen the mother of Ruth and Lucille who in the novel commits suicide.
Sylvie Helen's younger sister who comes to Fingerbone to take care of Ruth and Lucille.
Molly Helen's older sister. Molly left Fingerbone to do missionary work as a bookkeeper in the Honan Province of China.
Sylvia Foster Ruth's Grandmother. Sylvia lived her entire life in Fingerbone, accepted the basic religious dogma of an afterlife, and lived her life accordingly.
Edmund Foster Ruth's Grandfather and Sylvia's husband. He was raised in a house, dug out of the ground, in the Middle West. He is consumed with wanderlust and a desire to paint mountains. This desire leads to his job on a train and the related events form the foundation of the novel. Working on the train, he is killed in its crash into the lake of Fingerbone.
Lily Foster Sylvia Foster's sister-in-law, one of two who came from Spokane to care for Ruth.
Nona Foster Sylvia Foster's other sister-in-law.
Bernice is a friend of Helen's who lived below Ruth and her mom, Helen, when they lived in a tall grey building. Bernice urged Helen to visit her estranged mother and lent Helen her car so she could travel to see her. (the same car Helen used to drive herself off the bridge)
Ettie is a friend of Ruth's Grandmother, Sylvia Foster. A tiny old lady, whose skin was the color of toadstools.
The film adaptation Housekeeping was released in 1987. It stars Christine Lahti and was directed by Bill Forsyth. The film was shot in and around Nelson, British Columbia.