n Marilynne Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, the character Sylvie—a perpetual wanderer—never cooks for the two nieces whose custody she reluctantly takes on. "Sylvie liked cold food," her niece Ruth remembers: "sardines aswim in oil, little fruit pies in paper envelopes." She seems to subsist largely on crackers: the first morning after Sylvie's arrival, Lucille and Ruth awaken to find Sylvie "sitting in the kitchen by the stove, with her coat on, eating oyster crackers from a small cellophane bag."
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