The Keep: Unabridged Value-Priced Edition [Audiobook, CD] [Audio CD]

Danny and Howard, cousins who have been out of touch since a cruel teenage prank ended in near disaster, are brought together again in their 30's when Howard offers Danny a ticket to come explore a medieval castle in Europe that is his latest business venture. Howard has made a huge success of himself, while Danny has been floating around, working clubs and restaurants in a state of arrested development. When Danny arrives at the castle, a place unconnected to the outside world in any way, he begins to see and experience things that border on the supernatural - an effect that Howard and his acolytes all seem to embrace. The gothic elements in the book are fun in these chapters, but not successfully carried through to clarity.

There is, however, a second major storyline that unfolds - a prisoner in jail who enters a writing program begins to lay out his own story - and we see before too long that the two storylines are connected. The clever plotting and changing narrative perspectives keep this book rolling toward a revelatory climax. After a somewhat slow start, it becomes hard to put down. The downsides lie in a certain lack of resolution and a `last act' plot thread development that disappoints.

Jennifer Egan's third novel opens with neo-punk cyber-junkie main character Danny arriving at his cousin Howie's dilapidated European castle. Howie couldn't even pin down which country the castle is in--Austria, Germany, or the Czech Republic--"because the borders are constantly sliding around." Howie's dream is to create the ultimate spiritual retreat, a place to escape from modern conveniences and telecommunications and commune with higher powers. Lost soul Danny is not receptive to this idea; at least until he spots a young, blonde apparition in the Keep, the inaccessible tower of the castle that serves as "the last stand, the final holdout. It's what you protect, and where you run to when the walls are breached." Danny accepted plane tickets from his cousin as an escape route from his troubles with mobsters back in New York, but he rejected the physical isolation of the castle by bringing along his own bulky satellite phone.

Howie and Danny have a tumultuous past relationship, ever since Danny played a childhood prank that went terribly wrong. Danny has nagging doubts about Howie's motives for summoning him to his castle-in-transformation, and as strange events unfold, he's not sure who to trust and what is authentic. (It doesn't help that he's naturally predisposed to paranoia, of course.)

Early on, Egan tosses in another aspect to the story: it is actually a creative writing task for a hardened prisoner. Our author, Ray, only joined the writing class to escape his cell, but his fictional work takes on a life of his own, especially after he develops a connection with his fragile, recovering teacher. He empathizes his character Danny, but he makes it clear that Danny isn't a self-portrait.

The narrative about Danny and the ghosts of the Keep smoothly parallels Ray's struggles in prison, and subtle connections can be made between the plot twists in both Ray and Danny's lives. The stories converge in a natural manner (yes, Egan can make the supernatural entirely real). The Keep is one of the best books of the year, and it's nearly impossible for a reviewer to re-create the experience in a few short paragraphs. Go ahead and pick this one up to see for youself!

With almost 100 reviews on this site, and so much publicity, it's discouraging to add yet another. (The chances of this being read are small, and the chances of it swaying any readers are even smaller.) But I am impelled by a kind of irritation. It's a familiar irritation: I gave several days to this book, and it was a waste, and I want to write to someone!

Of all the books I have read this year, this is the worst. I agree almost entirely with Simone Oltolina, whose review is currently (as I write this) posted as "most helpful unfavorable review." But I disagree with the reason she says "The Keep" doesn't work. It's not because there are narrative threads left dangling. The problem is more pervasive. It is that Egan can't fill out scenes: she can't describe characters, and she can't even describe settings. The dank pools, castle keeps, dungeons, and forests here have been conjured so intensely, by so many people -- from Novalis to King! -- that it just won't do to have them sketched so cursorily, so feebly, with so little visual sense. I propose this test: take any scene in the novel, and try to picture it. What you'll get is only a Hollywood set, and the details of that set will be from the movies you have seen, not even from the novel. The book is threadbare, and Egan is not a novelist: a least not the kind she hopes, in this book, to be.

I am sorry to be so poisonous, but that is what happens when I give my time to a book that is so poor. Maybe amazon's reviews serve a cathartic purpose. I want to put this one behind me, and maybe warn someone else at the same time.