Allen Gurganus on "Housekeeping"

A blog post in today's New York Times online.

When the Book Review asked writers and editors to name the greatest novel of our last quarter century, I felt flummoxed proposing one book that good. Which of Philip Roth’s novels might we call his best? Hadn’t Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor been dead too long to qualify? Then I thought of “Housekeeping.”

I had read this slender volume more times than any other work by a still-living writer. For me, just reading the first chapter was like taking a strong multivitamin. It reminded me why I am a slow writer myself, why I care so immensely about craft and all that a single page of human work can offer.