Summary
The story-within-a-story device has been so overplayed in literature that as a twist, it runs the risk of tedium. Jennifer Egan, in her gripping and sophisticated novel THE KEEP, raises the bar and gives the screw a few more turns: her novel is about a story-within-a-story that's based on a true story! The novel kicks off with a burnt-out party boy Danny meeting his criminal-turned-millionaire cousin Howie at a central European castle. Danny's nervous about the encounter because in their youth he abandoned Howie in a cave. All of this turns out to be a novel-in-progress written by Ray, an incarcerated murderer taking a creative writing class, but, as the novel proceeds, the fiction proves to hold more than a glimmer of truth. Egan brilliantly juggles these layers of reality, skillfully shifting between Ray's writing, his life, his past, and even the perspectives of Holly, his writing teacher. Egan's prose is tough, fast, and smart; she takes a metafictional foundation and builds a thrilling, gritty, and emotionally powerful novel on top of it.
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"[T]he narrative strands come together to underscore the theme Egan movingly delineates throughout: the power of art to transform even the most twisted and hopeless lives....Intelligent, challenging, and exciting."
"Jennifer Egan, who constructs THE KEEP around ghosts and gamesmanship, has a cosmic sense of humor.... Ms. Egan’s arresting, twisted cleverness finds many ways to surface.... This book’s idea of ghostliness remains its best, most diabolical feature." -- Janet Maslin
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: Thorndike Pr
Published date: 2007
Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inches
Weight: 1.2 pounds
Pages: 389
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