Housekeeping (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Housekeeping
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of a trade-paperback reprint edition.
author = Marilynne Robinson
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Farrar, Straus and Giroux
release_date = 1980
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (hardcover & paperback)
pages = 219 pp (first edition, hardcover)
isbn = ISBN 0-374-17313-3 (first edition, hardcover)
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"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. [cite web|url = http://shopping.guardian.co.uk/books/story/0,1587,1062034,00.html | author = Robert McCrum | title = The 100 greatest novels of all time: The list | publisher = The Guardian Unlimited | date = 2003-10-12] "Time" magazine also included the novel in its "TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005". [ [http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html The Complete List | TIME Magazine - ALL-TIME 100 Novels ] ] Its synopsis, telegraphic yet accurate: "Haunting, poetic story, drowned in water and light, about three generations of women."

Plot summary

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 one of the girls reads the novel "Not as a Stranger", a bestseller from 1954.

Film adaptation

A film version of the novel was released in 1987. It starred Christine Lahti and was directed by Bill Forsyth. The film was shot in and around Nelson, British Columbia.

References

External links

* [http://www.lectures.org/robinson.html An excerpt from "Housekeeping"]
* [http://media.us.macmillan.com/readersguides/9780312424091RG.pdf Reading guide to "Housekeeping"]
* [http://www.pw.org/mag/articles/a8209-1.htm Poets & Writers article on "Housekeeping"]
* [http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-housekeeping/ 'Housekeeping' study guide] .
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