Housekeeping

Name: Housekeeping
Author: Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson · 1980

Robinson's first novel, written before her twenty-four-year silence. Two orphaned sisters in a small Idaho town are raised by an aunt who increasingly cannot tell the difference between domestic order and wilderness, between the living and the dead. Sentences so attentive that critics now teach them line-by-line. The American answer to Mrs. Dalloway.

The case against

on the symbolism
“is perhaps fatally weighed down with excess myth-and-symbol pretensions”
Kirkus Reviews, 1980
on the pacing
“there are moments where the novel seems to drag a bit”
Christopher J. Lee · Euphony Journal, 2022
on the density
“prose as dense and elusive as this”
a book blog
on Ruthie’s narration
“Ruthie as a believable narrator who speaks like a highly educated literary author”
a book blog