This is my nightmare, I thought as I started reading The Safekeep. Isabel lives alone in her family home. Her parents are both dead and her brothers have long moved out but Isabel is tied to the place, the keeper of this house, even though it will eventually go to her eldest brother Louis.
Isabel is mostly alone, structured in her days and paranoid about protecting her home. She watches her hired maid carefully, always fearful of being stolen from. Set in the 1960s, Isabel moved into the house with her brothers and mothers during World War II, an escape from the more dangerous city.
When Louis shows up with his girlfriend Eva and installs her into the house before going away, Isabel is angry and appalled. She does not want Eva there and she has no idea why this brash, loud young woman seems to be attempting to insinuate herself in Isabel’s life. The idea of a longterm, unwanted guest who won’t leave your home made this seem like a horror story for introverts. But the story is so much more than that.
It’s so impressive the way van der Wouden unfolds the story – and the history of these characters. Every word on the page feels so carefully selected and every moment so delicately revealed. I want to say so much and yet I also don’t want to give away what this story is really about. The way van der Wouden tells it and the rate at which we learn the true history of these women and this house is just so well done, I think it needs to be experienced.
There was a lot to think about in this book. Definitely one that will sit with me for a while.
A worthy Women’s Prize winner, do you think?
I do! I didn’t intentionally schedule my post to coincide with the announcement but it worked out nicely!
That’s good! I’ve been thinking I ought to read it now that it’s won but been unable to summon up much enthusiasm for it, so it’s good to hear you found it worthwhile.
It turned out to be a really different story from what I thought it was when I started reading.
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This book was way way too long and the characters thoroughly unlikeable. The sex scenes were jarring and unneccessary. Eva was the most interesting character and the book gathered some much needed pace when the narrative changed to her. Such a pity I had to endure 7 hours of reading for this to happen. The storyline was worthy but bogged down in amateurish prose and translation to English made it stilted. Save yourself some time and just read the last 20%.
I definitely got on with this book much better as I overall really enjoyed it and thought the direction the story took was unexpected and an interesting one. I didn’t think the characters were likeable but they were ones I could still care about following. Interestingly, the author is Dutch but wrote this in English rather than her first language. That may be where you feel some stiltedness in the language.