An unabridged audio edition of this classic work on the 25th anniversary of its first publication
A modern classic, housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.
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“Housekeeping speaks eloquently of displacement, loss, and longing.
Becket Royce has a friendly, inviting voice well-suited to Ruth’s long and
thoughtful narrations of the story, though she’s equally good at creating the
voices of Sylvie and Lucille, as well as incidental characters. Robinson’s use
of language is often challenging and always beautiful; some sentences brim with
meaning and metaphoric potential…But the rewards of listening slowly or rereading
provocative passages are worth it.”
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AudioFile