I only recently discovered the pleasures of reading Jennifer Egan when I read Look At Me last year. The Keep is another of her very interesting novels. Her most well-known novel, which I have on my list to read, is A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Danny is an aging hipster who has long occupied the edges of power looking for a way to get some for himself. He is on his way to Europe to take up an invitation extended by his cousin Howard to help develop an ancient castle into a hotel.
Danny is anxious about accepting this position because of his guilt and paranoia over a horrible childhood event, when his older cousin talked Danny into abandoning Howard in a deep cave. However, Howard’s invitation comes at a time when Danny urgently needs to get out of New York, so he goes.
After an unsettling arrival at the half-renovated castle, which contains opulence and filth within rooms of each other, Danny meets an almost unrecognizable Howard, his wife Ann and their two young children, his second-in-command and best friend Mick, and other assorted workers. Living in the keep of the castle is a mysterious old baroness who thinks she still owns the castle. A creepy feature of the property is a dark, reeking pool that may be haunted by two twins who drowned in it.
Back in the states, Ray, a prison inmate, is taking a writing class and begins reading aloud his story about a guy named Danny who journeys to Europe to help his cousin develop a castle into a hotel. Discovering the connection between the two stories, and a third one involving the writing class teacher, is part of the pleasure of reading this deeply involving novel. Egan moves the narrative back and forth in time to tell these two parallel stories, keeping the reader’s interest with consummate skill.
What? Me Read? 