The Keepers of the House
by Shirley Ann Grau
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Book Summary Information
Author: Shirley Ann GrauEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-11-11
ISBN: 1400030749
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of The Keepers of the House
Book Review: Important Themes; Compelling Delivery
Summary: 5 Stars
This book won a Pulitzer Prize, so one expects fine writing. But would a book about race in the South written more than 40 years ago --- at the time of the I Have a Dream Speech --- seem like more than an historical relic today? With Keepers of the House, the answer is definitely yes.
To begin with, Grau's spare, strong prose collects no cobwebs. It reads hard and clear 40 years later and will do so 100 years later. At the same time, she spins out her generational tale languidly and enigmatically. A relatively unimportant event (plot wise) can receive multipage treatment, and a critical event a few sentences. The pacing keeps the reader on her toes.
Moreover, though race pervades every portion of the book, it is not a story just about race. It covers much more: love, loss, parent-child relations; male-female relations (almost protofeminist at points); the rural south; whiskey manufacture; coming of age . . . there is a lot in here to grab the heart and the mind, much more than its statement about the destructive power of racial hypocrisy.
On the negative side, in its treatment of mixed race offspring and racial passing, the racist caricature of the "tragic mulatto" makes an appearance. (Check out this link if you are not familiar with the myth of the Tragic Mulatto: www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/mulatto). Although the book twists the traditional myth by, apparently, suggesting passing as the better course --- the characters who are set up to pass and stray from that path are condemned for it --- the message that racial mixing leads to tragedy comes through, albeit with the author's regrets.
That treatment certainly makes the book anachronistic as a "progressive viewpoint," and would understandbly play a role in its lack of prominence today. I would not prescribe it for a high school curriculum. It did not "spoil" the book for me, however, for two reasons.
First, while I "rooted" for the narrator and cheered for her during times of violent confrontation, I didn't really like her, so that her beliefs came across much less as the message of the book. Instead, she is just another flawed character of the time. Those beliefs are part, but only a part, of what one doesn't like about her. I don't know if she seemed more of a straightforward heroine when the book was written, but she certainly doesn't now.
Second, the core of the book is really the love story between the narrator's Grandfather and his housekeeper --- the interracial connection that drives the entire tale. The depiction of that relationship, far from perfect or idealized (though not portrayed either as the product of rape or powerlessness which would have been a real, but different, story) rang so true and was set out with such acceptance that, for me at least, it excused some of the bumps.
Finally, I should add that, although the story builds slowly, it does build. By the last quarter or so, I was in "can't put it down" mode.
Summary of The Keepers of the House
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1965, The Keepers of the House is Shirley Ann Grau?s masterwork, a many-layered indictment of racism and rage that is as terrifying as it is wise.Entrenched on the same land since the early 1800s, the Howlands have, for seven generations, been pillars of their Southern community. Extraordinary family lore has been passed down to Abigail Howland, but not all of it. When shocking facts come to light about her late grandfather William?s relationship with Margaret Carmichael, a black housekeeper, the community is outraged, and quickly gathers to vent its fury on Abigail. Alone in the house the Howlands built, she is at once shaken by those who have betrayed her, and determined to punish the town that has persecuted her and her kin.
Morally intricate, graceful and suspenseful, The Keepers of the House has become a modern classic.
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