Where to start? Normally the beginning. Where the hell is
the beginning of this one? I’m still puzzling over the structure and the layers
and they way the pieces fit together, but it’s a welcome challenge rather than
a chore. It’s one of those novels that keeps you guessing and uneasily on your
toes from start to finish and then beyond its grave, so to speak.
New Yorker, Danny, arrives at a European castle somewhere in
the middle of nowhere. He’s travelling light in many ways, though his luggage
includes a satellite dish so that he can keep in touch with what he considers
to be the real world. The weight of his internal baggage is much heavier. He
bears the scars of lost potential, broken relationships, of scrabbling through
the social rules of the world and those created by his deep need to be loved.
Though his new surroundings are like something from a fantasy, the bricks and history
he is required to navigate are solid and concrete, more so than any text or
blip on his social network radar.
He’s been invited there by his cousin, Howie, for reasons
that aren’t instantly clear.
Howie is rich and powerful. He intends to turn the castle
into a pure space for people to exist, discover their inner selves and explore
their imagination once they’re freed from the manipulation and bombardment of
modern cultural stimulus. He has a wife and family and a team of supporting
individuals working for me, including a menacing number two. Their biggest
problem getting is the woman who lives in the keep, an old baroness from a long
line of land-owning aristocrats. She has the ghost like properties of being
able to change in the eyes of her beholder and she insists that she’ll never
leave her home.
Danny begins to suspect that his role is to pacify the old
lady and persuade her to leave. He also worries that Howie has darker
intentions, given that he has every reason to want to mete out revenge for dark
deeds of the past.
As this plot twists and turns, there’s a sudden shift. This
story is contained within another. The story in which it is contained has an
impact upon the lives of others. Just when you think you know where you are,
the ground shifts and the view changes completely.
To elaborate would spoil the surprises, but each new angle
carries its own tensions and thought-provoking material. What’s important is
that each strand can both hold its own while being woven skilfully together as
things development and that when they are brought together they increase in
strength.
On a simple level, I enjoyed being drawn in to this. It’s
thrilling and engaging and haunting. At times it is uncomfortable, at others
perplexing.
At the end of it all, I was left with lots of questions. The
good kind. Those relating to identity, to the human condition, to the pitfalls
of contemporary life. I wanted to understand why the transitions felt so
seamless; how the depth of characters were so effectively mined; and what the
hell I’d missed along the way. I don’t have answers, but I’d be more than happy
to haggle over them in the comments section if you feel inclined.
Most importantly of all, I’d recommend you read the book. The Keep
(US) really is a
keeper, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
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