Robinson, Marilynne

John Ames Boughton, the prodigal son of Gilead's Presbyterian minister, falls in love with Della Miles, a high school teacher who is also the child of a preacher.

Glory, the youngest of the eight Boughton children, returns to Gilead, Iowa, in 1957 to care for her dying father, Robert, a former Presbyterian pastor, and the two are soon joined by Jack, the prodigal son of the family who left town twenty years earlier in the midst of scandal, and together they edge toward understanding, forgiveness, and healing.

In 1956, toward the end of his life, Reverend John Ames begins a letter to his young son, sharing the story of his life and explaining how his faith influenced his choices and actions.

"Delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations"--Amazon.com.

A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.

Ruth, a young girl struggling to overcome haunting family memories in a town which will not let her forget, gradually grows close to Sylvie, the sister of her dead mother.

Glory, the youngest of the eight Boughton children, returns to Gilead, Iowa, in 1957 to care for her dying father, Robert, a former Presbyterian pastor, and the two are soon joined by Jack, the prodigal son of the family who left town twenty years earlier in the midst of scandal, and together they edge toward understanding, forgiveness, and healing.

Abandoning her homeless existence to become a minister's wife, Lila reflects on her hardscrabble life on the run with a canny young drifter and her efforts to reconcile her painful past with her husband's gentle Christian worldview.

Ruth and her sister Lucille are cared for by Sylvie, the transient sister of their dead mother. They attempt to keep house as the forces of nature erode their stronghold.