A well written tale of two sisters raised by various relatives in a small town in Idaho. This is a highly acclaimed novel and the writing proves that the praise is justified. I read Gilead and enjoyed that a bit more, maybe because it was more identifiable for me. In that novel a father writes a letter to his son about the things he needs to know in life. In this, Robinson's first novel , Ruth narrates what her life was like being raised by her mother, then her grandmother, then some great aunts and finally her mother's sister, the eccentric Sylvia. Ruth and her sister Lucille at first enjoy the freedom afforded them by this carefree adult but later grow apart in their attitude towards the "housekeeping" of Sylvie, and Lucille moves out and on. Ruth connects more with the wandering spirit of her aunt and stays with her. They travel on the lake and fall away from the normal routines of day to day existence. The life in Fingerbone is centered around a glacial lake which had claimed both her grandfather and her mother and it seems that only by crossing this lake will Ruth be able to escape the judgement of the town.
I like the lines of the following review and would never have come up with the "deep undertow of transcience" but I guess that's why no one's asking for my reviews.
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 transcience. ( )

A wonderful book about family, loss, and the costs of both, luminously written. I couldn't put it down, and couldn't stop crying after I finished it.

This is Robinson's first book, and it's no wonder her second one was so longed for.

Well written, but I didn't really enjoy it ... lots of jumping around between narratives, a lot I just didn't get. This book is well written, but for me, doesn't come close to the amazing story telling in her later books 'Gilead' and 'Home'. ( )

While she does stray into the overly-self-conscious magical realism that is infecting much of American literature, she does it so incredibly well. Scenes from this strange book will stick in your head long after you put it down. ( )

Plot? Who needs a plot or any real action that propels the story forward? Perhaps this was one of those "character studies" or "atmosphere" novels that I simply did not understand. ( )