This Unlikely Place
Today we consider place, and the way it runs through our veins just as surely as the blood of our ancestors.
The power of place—both in writing and in our lives—shapes our sense of who we are. Place expands and/or contracts the possibilities we are able to recognize and act upon in our lives. Last night’s midterm elections demonstrated, as always, the profound impact of place on identity, core beliefs, and values. Place forms us, no less than water carves rock, wind sculpts sand, rain washes away loose earth. The more we raise our awareness of the continuous way in which place creates us, the richer our experience becomes, on and off the page.
In Marilyn Robinson’s stunning masterpiece of a novel, Housekeeping, the town of Fingerbone, Idaho is as much a character in the story as are Ruth, Lucille, and their eccentric aunts. Here is how Robinson begins the novel: