The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Penguin Books, 2025 (Viking, 2024)

Why?

Lots of noise around this: winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024, critically acclaimed when it came out in hardback last year; and now heavily promoted in paperback. I picked it up on buy-one-get-one-half price at the Buxton International Festival Waterstones bookshop.

I was particularly drawn to the idea of a woman sworn to living without others, and how her mind would be changed.

Enjoyment factor

I recall reading the reviews on hardback publication last year, but deliberately didn't revisit them in order to avoid plot spoilers.

This is a clever conceit, simultaneously charting the main character's sexual awakening with a moral awakening. The cast of characters is tight but the scope is enormous. Despite the novel having almost no likeable characters (I'd give an exception to the main character's brother Hendrik and his partner Sebastian), it's compelling.

It left me thinking ...

What an interesting take on the legacy of World War II, set fifteen years afterwards but with it nevertheless inescapably hanging over everything, with characters lying to themselves and truths still to come out.

About the idea of houses (or more accurately, homes) taking on their occupants' history.

That there are almost two novels here: one dealing with female independence, dependence, and desire; and the other exploring the legacy of the war. The two strands share explorations of anger and pain, which becomes the glue which binds them.

This intertwining of facing history with facing desires, coming together in a form of redemption at the end, is what makes the novel unique. I still can't say that I loved it, but I'm glad that I finally read it.