Even avid readers will be hard pressed to find another novel quite like Marilynne Robinson's luminous Housekeeping. Set in the remote, imaginary town of Fingerbone, Idaho, it presents the precarious and eccentric lives of three generations of Foster family women. Housekeeping chronicles the deaths, abandonments, and insecurities that beset the Fosters so vividly that it is often heartbreaking, but the novel also radiates a mysterious joy and tender humor commensurate with Ruth's childlike capacity for the sheer wonder of being alive.
The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular culture. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 NEA report, identified a critical decline in reading for pleasure among American adults. The Big Read addresses this issue by bringing communities together to read, discuss, and celebrate books and writers from American and world literature.
A great book combines enlightenment with enchantment. It awakens our imagination and enlarges our humanity. It can even offer harrowing insights that somehow console and comfort us. Whether you're a regular reader already or making up for lost time, thank you for joining The Big Read.
Marilynne Robinson (Copyright Nancy Crampton)
The railroad bridge across Lake Pend Oreille in Sandpoint (Photo by Chris Bessler)
Christine Lahti and Sarah Walker dance through the flooded living room as Sylvie and Ruthie in the 1987 film version of Housekeeping. (George Eastman House Motion Picture Department)
Sylvie and Ruthie start the fire in the film Housekeeping (1987). (George Eastman House Motion Picture Department)
