The Keepers of the House, Shirley Ann Grau
The Keepers of the House, Shirley Ann Grau
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The Keepers of the House

Author: Shirley Ann Grau

Narrator: Anna Fields

Unabridged: 9 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook (DRM Protected)

Published: 06/25/2010

Synopsis

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—the last remaining member of the esteemed family and the last keeper of the house—but not all of it.When shocking facts come to light about the late William Howland’s secret marriage to his black housekeeper, the community quickly gathers to vent its outrage upon Abigail and the Howland house itself.Shaken but defiant, Abigail—compelled to go back through the family history in order to understand herself, her father, and the South—will now, in the name of all her brothers and sisters, take her bitter revenge on the small-minded Southern town that has shamed them and persecuted them but will never destroy them.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. Morally intricate, graceful and suspenseful, it has become a modern classic.

About Shirley Ann Grau

Shirley Ann Grau, born in New Orleans in 1929, has spent most of her adult life in the Creole region. Not surprisingly, the powerful works of this major American author often reflect the isolated bayous and their French-speaking residents, but her fiction is equally at home with the fiercely independent people of small Southern towns and the sophisticated upper class of New Orleans. Her critically acclaimed first book, The Black Prince and Other Stories, established her as a talented new writer, and her fifth, The Keepers of the House, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1965.

About Anna Fields

Anna Fields (1965–2006), winner of more than a dozen Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award in 2004, was one of the most respected narrators in the industry. Trained at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, she was also a director, producer, and technician at her own studio, Cedar House Audio.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kevin

This sweeping saga won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for its depiction of a dynastic white family in rural Alabama at a time when prejudice and racism lived cheek-by-jowl with oppression and hypocrisy. No sooner had the curtain lifted on the cryptic opening chapter than I was purring at the innovative......more

Goodreads review by Dave

Here's a funny thing. I'd been looking at this book for a couple of years harbouring the fear that I may find it boring. More fool me. The theme of racial disharmony in the South is a well trodden path, but what Shirley Ann Grau delivers is fundamentally a love story. The writing is beautiful. Set in......more

Quotes

“Shirley Ann Grau is one of those rare writers who create a world, draw the reader into it, and make him somehow happy there, no matter what goes on…One comes to the novel’s end with a sense of loss and leaves that world with reluctance.”  Newsweek

“A beautifully written book.” Atlantic

“Her best novel.” Saturday Review

“Each year, I reread three authors—Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Shirley Ann Grau. No one else writes about the landscape of Louisiana as she does, but also about the landscape of bitter love and family dreams, of sex not as romance but as commerce and experiment and mystery, of people adrift in their lives and people so tethered to their own pieces of earth. Keepers of the House is a masterpiece of history and race and the fragile yet tenuous ownership of land and love.” Susan Straight, National Book Award finalist

“What a privilege to discover an older book that turns out to be better than most contemporary fiction. We can thank Blackstone for this pleasure…Anna Fields’ dramatic reading brings each of the Howlands vividly to life.” AudioFile

Awards

  • Pulitzer Prize
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