Lit in Translation

The Safekeep

The Safekeep

Yael van der Wouden (born 1987)

English editions

Written in English

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It is 1961, and Isabel, almost thirty, lives by herself in the country house the family took over in 1944, complete with every plate, pan and bedsheet left behind by whoever lived there before. She keeps the place and her own life in rigid order. She gets on with her younger brother Hendrik but is stiff with the elder, Louis, to whom the house belongs. Then Louis arrives with Eva, his new girlfriend, and leaves her in Isabel's care while he goes away. Isabel answers Eva's warmth with rudeness and resents her untidiness, and household things start to go missing, a spoon here, a thimble there. Through a hot summer the tension between them turns into something else, and the house's wartime history begins to come out.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form
Novel
Genres
Historical, Love (assigned by AI)
Set in
Netherlands, 1961
First published
2024
Author's age
37 when first published
ISBN

9781668034347 (Avid Reader Press, United States)

9780241652305 (Viking, United Kingdom)

9780241999776 (Penguin, United Kingdom)

9781668034354 (Avid Reader Press, United States)

More
Wikidata