From the Orange Prize winning author of Home Acclaimed on publication as a contemporary classic Housekeeping is the story of Ruth & Lucille orphansgrowing 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 & 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 & transience'I love & have lived with this book it holds a unique & quiet place among the masterpieces of 20th century American fiction' Paul Bailey'I found myself reading slowly than more slowly--this is not a novel to be hurried through for every sentence is a delight' Doris Lessing