The Safekeep

Thanks to my good friend and voracious reader, Chris, for the recommendation of this beautiful and brilliant book. Written by Dutch writer Yael Van Der Wouden, and published in 2024, it was shortlisted for the Booker prize, and won the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction, as well as the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
 
Plot Summary
 
It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. Sometime during the war, the family came to live in this house, but details of when and how are vague. Isabel obsessively protects the dishes, the furniture, and everything within the house. Just as her mother once did. Just as she protects her carefully, rigid life.
 
When her older brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for a time, everything is upended.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation, leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known.
 
The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.
 
My Thoughts
 
As soon as you begin this book, you know you are in the hands of a gifted, assured writer. The character of Isabel is carefully constructed and brought vividly to life. We quickly learn how Isabel moves through the world: uneasily, with great consequences for missteps. With no acknowledgement of her deep unhappiness, Isabel tends to her bitterness, her anger, and her disappointment with the world as though it is all that holds her upright.
 
Isabel’s younger brother, Hendrik, who she is closest to, would say, “Isa, Isa, come now, what’s the point of having good things if you can’t touch them?” And Isbel would answer: “They are not for touching. They are for keeping.”
 
Every gesture, every movement carries the weight of all Isabel’s unexpressed emotions. A touch of a hat, the placement of a bobby pin, a breath held for a second too long; so much is conveyed with so little, it’s like reading an ancient scroll where the language is universally understood without words.
 
There are seven characters in the book, but the author does so much with even the most minor of them. Hendrik’s lover Sebastian is a thoughtful and considerate man who intuits so much in such a short time. With his mother dying in Paris, he wants desperately to form a bond with Isabel who was there when her own mother died. Isabel, so full of resentment at having to bear witness alone to her mother’s passing, can’t overcome her bitterness and shuts down any chance of closeness with Sebastian as swift as the hangman’s blade.
 
Johan, whose family knew her family, is single and lives nearby. He is seen as Isabel’s last chance at a “normal” life and marriage. Despite Isabel’s reluctance to do anything that could remotely encourage him and her intense fear of physical contact, Johan doesn’t give up. His dinner date with Isabel is excruciating to read. I wanted to grab a glass of wine and join them just to alleviate a smidgeon of the tension. Of all the characters, Johan is the most inscrutable and I was never sure what kept him coming back. Was it the thrill of the chase, dogged, but odd, determination, or was there some other motivation for his pursuit of Isabel that I missed?
 
Isabel’s two brothers Louis and Hedrik dutifully maintain a relationship with their sister, despite her judgment and intolerance of their lifestyles and their unwillingness to visit the family home. I couldn’t help but like them for their perseverance with someone so thoroughly unlikeable. If you’ve ever had a family member who makes being around them difficult, you’ll appreciate how brilliantly these scenes land their target.
 
Then there’s Eva. Loud, brash, passionate, Eva is everything Isabel is not. But as we get to know her, the more we understand there is more to Eva than meets the eye. Slowly, we learn Eva has no family, no money, nothing to hang her hat on other than being Louis’s girlfriend. Where is her family? Where did she come from? What is her story?
 
As the summer continues, the tension and suspension between Isabel and Eva grows as charged as an electrical storm. Even when we think we know where it will lead, there are layers and layers of gauze obscuring the path.
 
I was spellbound with this book and couldn’t put it down. If you like sharp writing and a story both unpredictable and powerful, I highly recommend. If you get a chance to read it, please let me know your thoughts.
 
And in the meantime, happy reading!
Joni