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Fiction. Literature. Mystery. HTML:From Graham Norton�??the BAFTA Award�??winning Irish television host and author of the "charming debut novel" (New York Journal of Books) Holding�??a masterly and haunting tale of secrets and ill-fated love follows a young woman as she returns to Ireland after her mother's death and unravels the identity of her father. When Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother's death, she's focused only on saying goodbye to that dark and dismal part of her life. Her childhood home is packed solid with useless junk, her mother's presence already fading. But within this mess, she discovers a small stash of letters�??and ultimately, the truth. Forty years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet except for the constant wind that encircles her as she hurries deeper into the darkness away from the cliffs and the sea. She has no sense of where she is going, only that she must keep on. With wistful and evocative prose, A Keeper is sure to appeal to "fans of sensitive character studies" (Publishers Weekly) and brilliantly illustrates Graham Norton's clear-eyed understanding of human nature and its da… (more)
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This is a story
The 'Then' story is the story of Elizabeth's mother, Patricia, 40+ years earlier. Having spent her prime looking after her mother she wonders if it's too late to find love. I don't want to say anything more about Patricia's story as I think the reader must find out for themselves. However, what I will say is that it is Patricia's story that surprised me and wasn't at all what I was expecting. It's a little incredible but also very well done. It certainly has a dark side to it and looks at how tragic circumstances can affect the mind. This is a book that has some very mixed up people in it making it a bit disturbing in nature. Ultimately, though, they're mixed up due to terrible events and there's a real sense of despair and unhappiness running through it.
Elizabeth's tale is more investigatory. When she finds some letters hidden in her mother's wardrobe it leads her to question all that she believed about her past. I do tend to prefer the more modern side of dual timeline books for this reason and this book was no exception as Elizabeth travels through Ireland searching for answers.
I enjoy stories that jump around and allow the past and present to intermingle so A Keeper suited me very well. I think this is an intelligent and thoughtful book with a few one liners that smacked of the author's humour, but mainly a serious story of mothers and their children and all they will do to see them happy and settled. I'd definitely read another book by Graham Norton (I must get round to Holding) as he has a perceptive writing style, one which really appeals to me.
Elizabeth was never extremely close to her mother Patricia, often wishing she had a father figure in her life. Whenever she asked questions about her father Patricia would always say he was a kind man and he died shortly after they were married. After college she moved to New York and started her own life, marrying, divorcing and ending up with a son named Zach.
Now she is back in Ireland to see the home she inherited, trying to avoid her nosy cousins, anxious to return home. Now that wouldn’t be me! I would love to have a home in Ireland and spend half the year there. Anyway, as she’s cleaning out a wardrobe she comes across a package of handwritten letters, love letters from her father Edward Foley.
We drift into the Then chapters and see what Patricia was like fifty years ago. As you read the backstory about Edward and Patricia, get to know the horror of Edward’s mother (I mean truly) the story that unfolds takes such a neck braking twist that I couldn’t out it down. Trust me, you’ll be surprised.
Elizabeth’s son Zach and ex-husband have minor roles; mostly they could have been left out in my opinion but it adds slightly to the story. If you’d like to armchair travel to West Cork Ireland (past and present) and enjoy a mystery you will enjoy this book.
When I requested this book I didn’t know the author was the Graham Norton, the Irish television host. Impressive – I will certainly look for more by Mr. Norton.
Much thanks to Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book. Publication date is August 13, 2019. All opinions are mine and I was not compensated for this review.
Sharing with Joy for the British Isles Friday series.
But then a bundle of letters reveals a strange courtship between her
The story is told in two main time frames, the present day and four decades earlier when her mother Patricia apparently put an advertisement in the Lonely Hearts column of a farming journal. The narration easily slips between current time and the time when the letters were written.
A very enjoyable read, on the outer edges of crime fiction.
Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland following the death of her mother, to clear the house and put it on the market for sale. She quickly finds some old letters and gradually a story unfolds about both her
This is one of those books with two storylines, one in the past and one in the present, which unfold together. Cleverly written and engaging throughout. Definitely worth a read.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing an early copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
I liked the tone of the book, but I felt the plot became a little far-fetched at times. Edward‘s character wasn’t very believable. He also did not love how cheesy the ending became with everything coming full circle a little too neatly.
For all that it starts as a conventional family saga, A Keeper (2018) by Graham Norton takes a turn toward what I can only term Irish Gothic in its recounting of what really happened 40 years ago that ended with Patricia raising Elizabeth as a single parent. There are so many parallels among the generational stories: Patricia raising Elizabeth as a single mother; Elizabeth marrying and divorcing, leaving her to raise her own son, Zach, in a single-parent home; Zach’s own complicated romantic entanglements. Norton deftly juggles all three storylines without losing sight of the narrative’s focus. The answers may lie in the past with Patricia and Edward, but it is Elizabeth’s present and to a lesser extent Zach’s future that form the heart of the novel.
Norton is a skillful storyteller. I was immediately engrossed in Elizabeth’s life and shared her curiosity about what her mother had been hiding all those years. And I felt equally sympathetic and interested in Patricia’s story, such that the impatience I often feel when a novel switches from one timeline to another never materialized. The ending, while just a bit on the nose in its dénouement, was nonetheless satisfying. A keeper, indeed.
Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after the death of her mother and finds out that her family history is a far cry from what she believed. A Keeper is a story about a young woman looking for love, who winds up a prisoner and her struggle for
This was unexpected. Extremely well-written, which I did expect, but dark in a truly creepy way.
I don’t want to get too much into the plot for fear of spoiling it, but suffice to say, isolated areas near moors are involved, plus a cast of seriously sad and disturbed people. It all starts out seeming like a nice generational story, but as it goes on and the fibres get tangled about, the fog rolls in and suddenly you find yourself in a gothic horror.
Expertly switching between present and past keeps things pulling you along, until the final, somewhat rushed, ending.
A fun ride and it kept me up well past my bedtime to get to the end.
It’s high residue, too- the location is one that sticks in your head and I can almost feel the damp seeping from the walls, the despair in the wallpaper…
I did get the feeling the ending was squashed in as if the author was racing to finish the tale but I can understand the impulse as the reader races on, too.
Well worth a read and now I shall have to go read his others. Such a clever fellow and my goodness he is full of energy. Like Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, someone I would like at my ideal dinner table.
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