Loss: the subject of Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson’s story of the Foster sisters of Fingerbone, Idaho. A suitcase, a seat cushion and a lettuce was all that was retrieved from the lake in Fingerbone. Molly went to China to become a missionary; Helen, married to a “certain Reginald Stone ... set up housekeeping in Seattle”. Sylvie just left. Sylvie’s world, the world of the “transient” – the railways, the woods, the mountains – beckoned.

Source: The Irish Times October 20, 2018 04:52 UTC