Join a Book Discussion on The Safekeep, an award-winning historical novel by Yael van der Wouden
Tuesday, February 25 at 2pm | For FJC Members only
In-person and on Zoom
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION
Pamela Rothstein, Director of Lifelong Learning, will moderate this discussion.
An unlikely romance blooms in Yael van der Wouden’s tricky, remarkable novel, “The Safekeep.” – Lori Soderlind, New York Times
From the New Yorker: “This impressive début novel, short-listed for this year’s Booker Prize, is set in 1961 in the Dutch countryside, where the traumas of the Second World War have festered and conservative social attitudes prevail. Isabel, the story’s misanthropic protagonist, still lives in her childhood home, long after her siblings have moved to the city. When her elder brother’s vivacious, mysterious girlfriend turns up at the house for a monthlong stay, Isabel is suspicious and treats her with contempt. Yet her disdain soon transforms into desire, leading the two women into a clandestine relationship. Ultimately, the pair’s sensual love story is tested by revelations that force Isabel to reckon with the Netherlands’ role in abetting the Holocaust, and her family’s in silencing its survivors.”
The Booker Prize judges had this to say: "This novel is quietly devastating. Within a perfectly ordered Dutch landscape and a household where everything seems to be as serenely accounted for as a still-life, two women’s relationship with a house and its possessions becomes a story of the Holocaust. It is unique to find a book that is able to navigate this through the lens of love.”