The House

The majority of the novel takes place in the family’s home near Anchorage, Alaska. Lin focuses on describing the way the home changes over time. It was built near the end of the World War II boom, and was the first house to be built in a neighborhood that was never finished. It is in disrepair already when the family moves in: There are mushrooms growing in the bathroom, “figure-eight gouges” on the floor from an earthquake, a broken chimney, and a dirty wood stove (10). The house changes over the course of the novel, first when Ruby’s furniture is removed, and then later when the family finds flying squirrels in the attic that they have to remove. When the family starts struggling financially, they can no longer afford to heat the home as well, and it gets colder and colder. In Chapter 15, when the family...