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1900s: Two orphans grow up in the desolate town of Fingerbone
Housekeeping
What you need to know before your trail
Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and Lucille, orphans growing 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.
Locations
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Travel to Idaho and Fictional Fingerbone
Fingerbone, the town where the story takes place is very similar to Robinson’s hometown, Sandpoint, Idaho.
Aunt Sylvie (who has been living as a transient) comes to take care of them. They are close at first but as Lucille grows up she starts to dislike their eccentric lifestyle and moves out. Ruthie’s well-being is questioned by the courts, Sylvie returns to life on the road and takes Ruthie with her.
The subject of housekeeping, can mean cleaning and keeping a home but here it means more of keeping a spiritual home and having somewhere to belong.
Events take place in the latter half of the 1900s although the exact time is never specified. There’s a clue in the fact that Ruthie reads the novel Not as a Stranger, which was a bestseller from 1954.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Housekeeping
Destination: Idaho, “Fingerbone” Author/guide: Marilynne Robinson Departure: 1900s
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