Description: When Dolly, a newlywed in the 1950s, moves to Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, her restless imagination is seized by an abandoned mansion. Soon both Dolly and the houses troubled owner discover the truths of their own lives and feelings.
Brief description:
Ellen Baker was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and grew up in Wisconsin and Illinois. She earned a masters degree in American studies from the University of Minnesota, worked as curator of a World War II museum, and is currently a bookseller and event coordinator at an independent bookstore. She lives with her husband in Wisconsin.
Review Quotes:
"Ellen Baker's first novel, Keeping the House, is a quilt that grids a small Midwestern town in the middle of the last century. Under this writer's deft hands, each square is a story, a mystery, an indiscretion, a tale of the great house and grand family who once ruled there. Even more, it captures the roles of women then: both the living embodiments of demure ideals and those who couldn't fit the pattern. Edith Wharton's novels of domestic despair come to mind with each page."
-- "Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author"