Read: The Keep by Jennifer Egan
The Keep isn’t easy to describe. It starts out with one thing and then you realise there’s more to it.
So two cousins reunite in a castle somewhere in Europe. Howard the millionaire wants to turn it into a hotel and needs help putting it in shape. Danny, who has had a run-in with the mob in New York, takes up his offer. But the cousins have had a difficult past. When they were teenagers, Danny tricked Howard into a cave where he wandered, lost, for three days and which eventually led him down a path of drugs and despair. But he’s somehow redeemed himself, made his money in bond trading, and is married with two children (whereas Danny is struggling in his life and his career). So the cousins come together in this ageing castle/hotel where an elderly baroness still reigns (or so she believes) from her keep.
To tell you more would be to reveal too much (although I do realise that some reviews have indeed told a whole lot more). I went into this novel not knowing much, mostly attracted by the cover and by some book-blogger buzz I remember hearing about this now and then. I’d never read Egan before so I had no expectations whatsoever. But as I moved the book to my ‘currently reading’ shelf on Goodreads, I couldn’t help but glance down at the user reviews, which were extremely varied. And that made me curious about this book. Was it really that bad? Or was it just a victim of too much hype (a lot of them mentioned the NYT reviews)?
I will say though that the other part of the story didn’t quite work for me as well as the castle story. I liked that sort of gothic, dark vibe that goes with the castle and its inhabitants.There was a ghostliness to it, and you get the sense of the dank, musty, ancient and forgotten. The other part of the book worked ok, but it wasn’t as absorbing as I expected.
Yeah that all sounds kind of vague right now, but if you haven’t read it, I don’t want to ruin your reading. So I guess I’ll say, why not go see for yourself? Give it a chance and see if you like it. It won’t ever make my top 10 or even 20 list (not that I’ve ever made one) but it was a pretty good read.
I agree that it’s really hard to discuss this one because even general statements threaten to take away some of the reader’s fun in discovering the multi-layered side to Egan’s novel. I also found the Castle Part resonated most strongly with me too (deliciously eerie), but developed more of an appreciation for the other storylines when I started to think about the intersections between them.
Exactly, I think it’s best to come into this story knowing as little as possible about it!