Review: 'Housekeeping' by Marilynne Robinson

I can't believe it's late November already...I'm living in a very cold and blustery Oxford with some very chapped lips and hands! At this time every year, in the seasonal slump where the golden autumn comes to an end for a starker chill, I like to find a book to match this transitional mood. My mum came up trumps with this recommendation: Marilynne Robinson's debut novel Housekeeping, much lauded on its publication in 1980.

Set in a fictional Northwest town in the mountain called Fingerbone, the novel tells the tale of two lonely sisters, passed from generation to generation of their female relatives following their mother's suicide. It's a novel that is crystalline in it's beauty of language: every sentence runs as deep as the lake that forms the centre of the sister's physical and emotional landscape. Friends are few and far between; it's a lonely world. The title mirrors the falsities and pretences of each domestic setup: whether it's their frail grandma or their fragilely-minded aunt Sylvie, the girls cannot overcome the deep sense of transience and loneliness.

If this sounds negative, it's not meant to be: this is a beautiful and resonant book, that treats life and human relationships with a sacred seriousness. It's quite astonishing - you get such a whole and sustained vision of Ruth and Lucille's narrow, bleak yet compelling world. 
This book reminds me a great deal of Margaret Atwood's novella 'Surfacing', with its aqueous prose and probings into female power and relationships. I'm quite sure that the makers of the film Winter's Bone have read and loved this novel - it shares a rural toughness, and a reliance on strong female presence with the film that make both works astonishing. 

If you haven't read this, I would highly recommend it. I'm going on a hunt for some more Marilynne Robinson. I think I may have found my new favourite author that everyone has been one step ahead about. Cheers Mum.