224 pages
English language
Published Feb. 8, 2005
Acclaimed on publication as a contemporary classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and Lucille, orphansgrowing up in the small desolate town of Fingerbone in the vast northwest of America.
Abandoned by a succession of relatives, the sisters find themselves in the care of Sylvie, the remote and enigmatic sister of their dead mother. Steeped in imagery of the bleak wintry landscape around them, the sisters' struggle towards adulthood is powerfully portrayed in a novel about loss, loneliness and transience.
It’s about loneliness, and transience, for sure, but it’s also about the masks and patterns we use to sanitize ourselves for the world, and how they battle with our real human nature and what it means to be alive and to yearn and dream and feel. I fucking loved it.
