Book Review: The Safekeep

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This is my book review of The Safekeep by Dutch author, Yael van der Wouden.

Kirkus Reviews said this book is: “A brilliant debut, as multi-faceted as a gem.” “Remarkable…compelling,” wrote The New York Times. “Fine and taut…indelible.”

In 1961, the war was over. The rural Dutch province of Overijssel was calm and quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, and the buildings have been reconstructed.

Isabel lives alone in her late mother’s country house. She is ruled by self-discipline. Isabel is rigid, private, and deeply attached to her routines. I’d venture that the character Isabel is supposed to be autistic, though it wasn’t clear in the writing.

Then her brother, Louis, brings his new girlfriend, Eva, to visit. To make matters worse, he chooses to leave her there with Isabel while he’s away on a trip, which disrupts Isabel’s carefully controlled home. Their personalities clash immediately, creating tension and discomfort.

Isabel truly dislikes Eva. She sleeps late and seems to have no daily discipline. She walks loudly and touches things she has no business touching.

Isabel becomes more and more furious with her when things around the house begin to disappear. First, it’s a spoon, a knife, and then a bowl.

Isabel just knows she’s going to be robbed blind by this frivolous girl, and she can’t wait for Louis to return and take her away.

Book Excerpt:

Eva said, “You have a lovely home, Isabel.” Her mouth was port-stained. The bleach made her hair frizz out of its pins. She was wearing a different dress today, just as badly made. The fabric looked like it had once been a quilt. Isabel wanted her out of the house.

Their Feelings Shift

Without knowing why, Isabel develops a fascination with Eva that leads to infatuation. These feelings threaten to unravel all that Isabel has known and held dear.

She doesn’t make friends, and she doesn’t have lovers. Suddenly, she cares about this girl who, in the beginning, she couldn’t stand. But how could her feelings nosedive from one end of the spectrum to the other?

Isabel will later learn that Eva isn’t there by accident. It is all a ruse, and Isabel and Louis are both unaware of the reason Eva has sprung into their lives.

She finds that Eva has been to their house before, and there is a reason that she has come back. And it isn’t because of Louis at all.

Does she mirror Isabel’s feelings for her? Oddly enough, it seems that she does. And then Eva’s world is turned upside down as well.

My Review:

This LGBTQ+ novel features a romantic relationship between its main characters, Isabel and Eva, set in post-Holocaust Amsterdam. These two women are drawn to the same place for very different reasons.

For Isabel, the house, which actually belongs to Louis, is her shelter and safe place. For Eva, it’s all about the past and what was taken from her family.

This is a book about discovering that love doesn’t always make sense. Deep feelings can make you learn things about yourself you never knew existed.

I was intrigued by the sudden feelings Isabel began to experience toward Eva. On the one hand, Isabel hates the very sight of Eva. Then she falls in love with her.

Eva and Isabel move from enemies to lovers, but their connection is intertwined with buried history and unresolved pain. This aspect gives the story its emotional weight and tension.

This book is morally complex, consisting of romantic feelings between two very different women. Though neither woman wants this attraction to upend their lives, love is sometimes a mystery that can’t be explained.

It was interesting how the anti-social Isabel began to step out of her comfort zone as her feelings unexpectedly became romantic.

Yael van der Wouden’s writing and the flow of the narrative are beautiful.

Book Excerpt:

The house was a dark shape against the sky. Two proud firs. A single star came out of the waning moon; a beauty mark dotted under a coy eye. The hot season’s night rustled in the way that winters never did, bugs dry in the brush, things that had business in the dark.

About the Author: