ISBN: 0312424094 Housekeeping: A Novel Authors : Marilynne Robinson Manufacturer:  Picador  Tell A Friend:   List Price:  $14.00             Your Price:  $11.20

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Customer Reviews   Read Gilead First Rating:  I would highly suggest reading Robinson's other fiction work first. This book is very slow. The pace set does not pick up throughout the book and while the writing is lovely, beautiful in fact, some might not respond well. If you are used to reading fast books, especially fiction/mystery, you may have a hard time with the sentences that take an entire page, with the adjectives that carry on and on as your eyes droop and grow weary with the passing of the sun over the sky. (if you happen to think that I should have just said 'it reads slow' this may not be your book). I HIGHLY recommend reading Gilead first which does have more of a substantial "plot" in my opinion and believable characters, deeper characters. If you love Gilead than this book will be awesome. The writing is poetry. Just slow poetry. Hauntingly Lyrical Tale Rating:  This beautifullly written novel is the tale of two girls orphaned by their mother's suicide into the cold mountain lake which took their remote grandfather before they were born. Robinson is a master story teller who uses lush language not to impress but for an efficiency of words. Her vocabulary and diction are "so precise, so distilled, so beautiful that one doesn't want to miss any pleasure it might yield. In a story of such sorrow and lonliness where those two characteristics are palpable, the author is sympathetic to her flawed characters. Ruthie, the child narrator observes that "sorrow is a predatory thing..." She observes that "...in the way people are strange, they grow stranger." Thus she details her custodial aunt's departures from reality and her own descent into madness. "I have often noticed," she says, 'that it is almost intolerable to be looked at, to be watched, when one is idle. When one is idle and alone, the embarrassments of lonliness are almost endlessly compounded." It is not merely that she makes this observation which makes the story great, but that she is able to distill the accompanying emotion into such measured speech. At first Ruthie describes her younger sister, Lucille, as the child who is mentally ill. It is only after Lucille begins to seek the friendship of her peers, to conform to societal norms, and chooses to move out of the family home and into her teacher's house that the reader realizes that Lucille is the sane sister. "She had remarked to me once or twice... that it was odd to tie back one's hair with grocery string." Ruthie ..." was increasingly struck by Lucille's ability to look the way one was supposed to look... but try as she might, she could never do as well for me." Their aunt, Sylvie kept her clothes and toiletries in a cardboard box under the bed while she slept fully clothed and with her shoes on on top of the covers with a quilt pulled over her. Sometimes she slept out doors on the lawn. She dressed the girls inappropriately for the weather and the occassion. They wore blue sequined slippers of inferior quality to trudge through the muddy roads to school and in orlon sweaters instead of coats on cold days. Their diet was inconsistent and incomplete. Still Robinson finds humor amidst the sadness. She describes Bernice as an old woman who"...managed to look like a young woman with a ravaging disease..." We all know a few characters who could be described thusly. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this book. I don't agree with the other reviewers who found it slow or uninteresting. I could not put it down. It read splendidly. I loved her Pullitzer winning Gilead as well. Read this touching tale of tragedy and mental illness. You won't be sorry. A Bloated Short Story Rating:  I didn't like this book. I didn't like this book and I'm so sorry I wasted my money and time reading it. I have never seen so much fill and fluff between two covers. I kept reading, thinking it will get better, but it didn't. Very disapointing throughout. If you want a good read, pick up Glass Castle.

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