Housekeeping

Marilynne Robinson became an overnight literary star when her second novel, Gilead, won the Pulitzer in 2005. But her cult following began a quarter century earlier with this brief, luminous novel about finding your place in the world. After their mother’s suicide, teenage siblings Ruth and Lucille get shuttled from one set of relatives to another in the tiny mountain town of Fingerbone, Idaho—until their mother’s free-spirited sister, Sylvie, comes home and takes charge. The sisters’ very different responses to Sylvie’s eccentricities—from sleeping in her clothes to wandering off to spend days in the nearby forest—threaten to fray their once-unbreakable bond. Robinson’s vivid and expressive language brings you right into her heroines’ peculiar world, a place that director Bill Forsyth (Local Hero) captured beautifully in his 1987 film starring Christine Lahti as Sylvie. Sweet, sad, funny, and absolutely magical, Housekeeping is a transcendent joy.