Or imagine Sylvie Foster coming in from the cold not to care for her orphaned nieces but to marry a man whose encroaching dementia manifests itself in spasms of violence, and in the belief that Sylvie is, and therefore she be treated as, a dog. Imagine Robinson's Ruth and Lucille visiting, instead of that haunting body of water, an exploded meth lab.

Her Idaho-her depiction of the panhandle in particular-is very different from Robinson’s in *Housekeeping*. I’m not sure that I agree with a certain reoccurring description of this book: I've seen Ruskovich compared here and there to the likes of Marilynne Robinson and Alice Munro-flattering comparisons, to be sure-but to my eye, Ruskovich is all her own. In a wild emotional and physical landscape, Wade’s past becomes the center of Ann’s imagination, as Ann becomes determined to understand the family she never knew - and to take responsibility for them, reassembling their lives, and her own. In a story written in exquisite prose and told from multiple perspectives - including Ann, Wade, and Jenny, now in prison - we gradually learn of the mysterious and shocking act that fractured Wade and Jenny’s lives, of the love and compassion that brought Ann and Wade together, and of the memories that reverberate through the lives of every character in Idaho. With her husband’s memory fading, Ann attempts to piece together the truth of what happened to Wade’s first wife, Jenny, and to their daughters. Henry Prize–winning author Emily RuskovichĪnn and Wade have carved out a life for themselves from a rugged landscape in northern Idaho, where they are bound together by more than love. A stunning debut novel about love and forgiveness, about the violence of memory and the equal violence of its loss - from O.

Idaho by emily ruskovich