In the isolated town of Fingerbone, Idaho, sisters Ruth and Lucille are raised by a succession of female relatives following their mother’s suicide. Their grandmother provides a brief period of domestic stability before their transient aunt, Sylvie, arrives to take charge of the household. Sylvie ignores traditional domestic structures, allowing the lake’s dampness and wild birds to permeate the home. While Lucille seeks social conformity and conventional order, Ruth aligns herself with Sylvie’s eccentric, phantom-haunted worldview, eventually choosing a life of wandering over the permanence of a fixed residence.
Readers interested in the tension between societal expectations and the pull of solitude will find a detailed study of nonconformity. Those who study the psychological impacts of loss and the physical landscape of the American West read this for its focus on transience and the fragility of human memory. The book provides an understanding of how grief can reshape one’s perception of physical reality, leaving the reader with a stark perspective on the difference between being rooted and being adrift.
Deep, inward-looking, contemplative, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Wisdom Collector. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1980
- Language
- EN
