NSD English PLC
Grade 12 Title Suggestion
Housekeeping
by Marilynne Robinson
first published in 1980
earned PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award in 1982
Description
In language as lyrical and lush as the landscapes it describes, Robinson tells a haunting story of the permanence of loss and the transitory nature of love. She reminds us that, despite the fragility of human relationships, our desires to hold onto them are what make us whole.
Excerpt
New York Times Review
At one point in ''Housekeeping,'' Ruth has grown so awkwardly tall that her sister, Lucille, knocks the heels off her shoes to help her stand and move more naturally. Marilynne Robinson, too, does something like this. She knocks off the false elevation, the pretentiousness, of our current fiction. Though her ambition is tall, she remains down to earth, where the best novels happen. by Anatole Broyard, January 07, 1981