Housekeeping: A Novel

There's no way I could improve upon any other review of this book or properly put into words how utterly beautiful it was, while at the same time just evoking every visceral fear -- of losing people, losing your way, losing yourself, losing your mind -- or are they visceral hopes and dreams? -- to be free of all that society forces upon us and expects of us.
We are first introduced to the lonely, dank town of Fingerbone and this lonely family through the grandfather and his horrific death in a train crash where the train went off the tracks and into the river. The river then becomes another central character in the story and the source of this family's sadness, and hope.
Lucille and Ruthie weren't born in Fingerbone. Their mother had escaped for a while, only to bring them back as young girls, where they are raised for a time by their grandmother, then their two great aunts, who are baffled and put out by this unexpected responsibility. Then they locate Sylvie, the girls' long-lost aunt, and summon her back to Fingerbone to take over looking after the girls and the family home. Sylvie, who has been living a transient life, doesn't seem to know, or care, what to do with the house or the girls, and it sets them all on their fateful paths for very different futures.

I had this book on my shelf for a very long time. I don't know why I put off reading it for so long. What a treasure! Beautifully desolate. (Or desolately beautiful?)