Housekeeping

Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping. New York: Picador 1980. Print

First Sentences:
 

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, Misses Lily and Nona Foster, and when they fled, of her daughter, Mrs. Sylvia Fisher.


Description:

As you probably noticed, I haven't posted any book recommendations for several months. Chalk it up to a severe case of reader's block. Nothing I tried to read during the COVID pandemic seemed to capture my attention. Fiction seemed too frivolous. Non-fiction too detailed. Humor? Forget it with everything going on politically and health-wise.

 

So what to do? I decided to pick up some old reliable favorite from past reading experience that never fails to satisfy. I have several of these that I turn to when desperate for the restorative power of great writing, characters, plot, and setting. My favorite reliables? J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf, P.G. Wodehouse's The Golf Omnibus, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, and W. Somerset Maugham's Complete Short Stories 

 

This time I returned (after too many years away) to Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. It's a very quiet, but unsettling novel about two young girls: narrator Ruth and younger sister Lucille, who are placed in the care of a quirky, distant aunt, Sylvia, after the suicide of their mother.

 

Sylvia is a drifter, a wanderer, living her life (by choice) riding trains, with no home, no ties, and no plans for the future. But she is coerced into settling back into her family home with these two young girls who need an adult. They live in their family home in the bone-chilling isolation of Fingerbone, Colorado on the shores of a mighty lake, the very same water that claimed the lives of their grandfather in a spectacular train wreck and their mother who drove off a cliff into it.

 

Sylvia is definitely not a homemaker, with her casual attention to orderliness, schedules, promises, food, and clothing. She is taken to wandering the neighborhoods through the night, "borrowing" a boat and rowing to secret locations. and hoarding newspapers stacked high in the house. But when her actions are questioned by authorities enough to removed the girls from her care, she proves to be fiercely protective of their small family and her role in it.

 

Eventually the girls respond to her lifestyle, each one choosing to either rebel or accept her quirks into their own lives. Their adolescent development and growth in trying to understand the mysteries of Sylvia slowly, steadily work to portray a picture of survival, family, and choices.

 

I loved this book, although, fair warning, it may not be for everyone. It paints a picture of life among people struggling to understand their place in the world, how choices affect them and others, all  set in a very cold, grey, vaguely ominous environment. But for readers interested in storytelling and writing at its best, I highly recommend Housekeeping.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Doig, Ivan. The Whistling Season.   

A Chicago woman in 1909 answers an advertisement for a housekeeper from a widower and his three young sons living in an isolated Montana town. She writes that she "Can't cook, but doesn't bite," and gets the job sight unseen (by both of them). She brings her brother with her on the train and he reluctantly becomes a unique schoolteacher. Simply wonderful, a great read not to be missed.  (previously reviewed here)