Housekeeping is a novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson. It was published in 1980, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction , and given the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel. In 2003, the Guardian Unlimited named Housekeeping one of the 100 greatest novels of all time, describing the book thus: "Haunting, poetic story, drowned in water and light, about three generations of women." Time magazine also included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. Ruth narrates the story of how she and her younger sister Lucille are raised... by a succession of relatives in the fictional town of Fingerbone, Idaho . Eventually their aunt Sylvie comes to take care of them. Initially they become a close knit group, but as Lucille grows up she comes to dislike their eccentric lifestyle and she moves out. Then when Ruth's well-being is being questioned by the courts, Sylvie returns to living on the road and takes Ruth with her.
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