The Safekeep by Yeal van der Wouden

Friday, Nov. 21, 2025--San Antonio 

The Safekeep by Yeal van der Wouden was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a unique and special novel that is essentially a delayed coming-of-age story of a repressed, grouchy woman named Isabel in The Netherlands.  An older neighbor man seems to be pursuing her, but he is too touchy and she tries to avoid him.  She is obsessed with maintaining the family home and all of its possessions.  It is a home that their uncle had gotten a good deal on in 1944--a large mansion in a rural area that was strangely completely furnished (not just with furniture but with everything necessary for living in it--kitchenware, a box of toys, and clothing) so that she, her two brothers, and her mother could leave the chaos in Amsterdam toward the end of WWII to live there.  By the beginning of the story, the mother has died and the two brothers have left home to live in an urban area.  Isabel is alone in the world, grouchy, and suspicious of anyone who comes to the house.  Her uncle has arranged paperwork that will transfer the ownership of the home to her older brother Louis when he marries but it allows Isabel to live in the home until that point in time (with the assumption that she will eventually marry and leave).  Up until now, Louis has only maintained brief relationships, but he has a new girlfriend he wants to bring to the house so she can see it.  And while there he surprises Isabel by saying he has to leave for a special work assignment for a few weeks and he wants the girlfriend to stay at the house in the meantime because they are going to be married when he returns.  Isabel was awkward in school and teased by others, and she is awkward as a woman.  She is not really close to anyone but her younger brother Hendrick who has an unexplained relationship with a Frenchman named Sebastian who is his roommate.   She can converse comfortably with this brother, but he may be about to need to leave for Paris with Sebastian whose mother is ill and needs him there to take care of her.  Neither she nor Hendrick like their older brother Louis.  And Isabel immediately dislikes Louis' girlfriend, doesn't want her to stay in the house, and is rude to her.  But the change in her daily routine caused by this visit changes the rest of Isabel's life.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.